


Resident Evil Exodus: The Tale of Elza Walker (Part 4)

by RMandel



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:29:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 74,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RMandel/pseuds/RMandel
Summary: Among the many stories that have come to us from the events surrounding the Raccoon City T-virus Outbreak of late September, 1998, is the tale of one particular and remarkable woman.  She is a person who by all rights should be as familiar and as famous as many of the more storied characters, both male and female, and both good and bad, who emerged from that horrible catastrophe.  The reasons for that are many, and will not be dealt with here.  Nevertheless, her adventure is no less dramatic, no less involved, and no less inspiring, than those of her fellow survivors from that disaster.  She suffered more than most, endured more horror that most, and almost paid the ultimate price for daring to challenge that calamity ... yet in the end, she survived.  She not only emerged from that hell on earth but went on to become one of the biggest names behind the scenes in the modern struggle against global bioterrorism.  Even today, even though she is no longer the action-oriented and adventuresome young woman she was back then, she plays her part and carries her share of the burden with just as much drive and determination as her more famous counterparts.That woman is Dr. Elizabeth Ann "Elza" Walker.  THIS is her story.





	Resident Evil Exodus: The Tale of Elza Walker (Part 4)

RESIDENT EVIL: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker  
by Richard Mandel

 

based on characters and concepts created by Capcom®, Ltd.  
ArchiveOfOurOwn (AO3) edition  
(based on the v4.10 text)

 

1996 original scenario by Hideki Kamiya and Isao Oishi  
2008 revised scenario by Fumio Yamaguchi  
2014-15 reversioning by Richard Mandel

 

Exodus concept, selected characters and events, and this manuscript copyright © 2015 Richard Mandel. All other Resident Evil©® materials are the intellectual property of Capcom®, Ltd.

Use of Capcom's materials in this work of fiction is meant solely for the entertainment purposes of my fellow Resident Evil©® fans, and is not meant to be infringing in any way, express or implied, or in any form, shape, or fashion.

Please be advised that it is Capcom, not I, who holds the ultimate right with regards to all things produced under the Resident Evil©® title, and as such it is they who have the final say with regards to the availability, use, duplication, or distribution of this work.

Any relationship to any person or persons - living, dead, or undead - is solely coincidental.

\--------------------

STAGE FOUR - THE LAB AND AFTER

Chapter 21 - Recovery

Elza was alone, weightlessly drifting in a silent, black void that seemed to extend to infinity in all directions. Her nude body felt no heat, no cold, no sensation of any kind. She could feel nothing, see nothing, taste or smell nothing, and sense nothing at all, as if mere existence was all that was needed. She was just ... there. "The limbo of the lost," she thought to herself. It was the first thing she could remember thinking after losing consciousness. Maybe she was still out. Maybe she was ... dead? No – she refused to accept it. She tried to move, to look around, to call out, but she couldn't. There seemed to be some tremendous disconnect between her mind and her body. It welcomed the void and strove to embrace it, while her mind fought to reject it, to escape from it, to let all the world know that Elizabeth Ann Walker was still alive. She wasn't dead yet, not by a long shot, but how could she return to the land of the living?

Elza willed herself to live with every fiber of her mortal existence. Slowly at first, then with increasing awareness, she began to feel a rising sensation. It seemed to pick up speed even as the void around her began to lighten. It went from pitch black to the darkest of featureless greys, then dark grey, then still lighter, as her weightless body continued to rise and pick up speed. She was aware of a brilliant light that had appeared somewhere above her, but she was unable to look up and see its source. She was also aware of a faint voice that had just intruded on the extreme edge of her hearing. It too increased in volume as her body continued to rise and the light continued to brighten. She thought she recognized the speaker, and she thought it was calling her name. She tried to ratchet up her willpower even higher, and was instantly rewarded with an abrupt increase in the rushing sensation. Like a bullet shot from a gun, her body shot upwards into the light, was completely engulfed by it, and then disappeared.

* * * * *

The first sensation Elza felt when she finally came to her senses was that of pain. Not the pain she would or should have felt, given the seriousness of her injuries; nevertheless, it was there. It was more like the sensation felt by a long-distance marathon runner at the end of a particularly grueling race, when it seems that every part of the body aches and is trembling on the point of collapse. Elza knew there was a lot more pain hidden somewhere, for it too made its presence known as a sluggishly numb sensation in those parts of her body where she knew she must have taken serious injury. For now it only lurked on the edge of her present pain threshold like a dark shadow, with its presence merely an implied threat ... yet it was definitely there. It was quite obvious that she had been heavily sedated, and for her own good, no doubt. Elza did not relish the idea that she might have awakened in a screaming frenzy, a near-mindless wailing banshee who was simply unable to bear with the levels of pain that she knew she probably would have been feeling otherwise. She had been cared for then. That was good. That meant at least one of the others was still alive ... and that was something. It was a start, anyway. Now to go on.

She tried to open her eyes. Only the right eye would respond. Something wrapped around her head seemed to hold the left closed. That was where her head had slammed into that steel beam, she remembered grimly. She next tried to take a deep breath, and was instantly rewarded for her trouble by a sharp pain that stabbed through the left side of her chest. She gasped in spite of herself. She hadn't felt that much pain since she been mauled by that angry momma bear – and this was only one part of her injuries. How badly was she torn up? she wondered, as she fought to settle herself back down to a point where she could at least tolerate the new level of pain that now came with the simple act of breathing.

Linda Merton had been sitting on the edge of the small watchman's bed in the Lab Security Office, lost in thought, when she heard Elza gasp. Immediately she turned and saw Elza arch, fighting just to breathe. She reached down with her free hand and nudged the sleeping figure on the floor nearby. Rita immediately sprang from the half-folded blanket where she had been lying and came to Elza's side in a kind of half-seza position, hovering over her patient like the caregiver she now was. She didn't have to do anything, however. All she had to do was watch as the that formidable iron will that was one of the trademarks of Elza Walker took over the situation, and then slowly forced her broken body into as close an approximation of normal breathing as it could manage. There was obviously still a great deal of pain; however, Elza was dealing with it – as only Elza could.

"Hi, Elza," Rita said shakily, trying to project a sweetness into her voice that she honestly didn't feel. "Welcome back to the land of the living. We thought we had lost you there for a bit, but here you are. It's good to see you back, girl."

Elza slowly turned her head so she could see both Rita and Linda with her one eye that still worked. She noticed that Rita's tie was missing, and that there was blood smeared on the lower part of her uniform blouse. Her blood, Elza thought, not Rita's. She looked over at Linda, and her attire and accessories were in much the same shape. The only difference was the red-filled transfusion tube that ran from the arm Linda was holding up against herself. Elza looked down and around, and saw that a similar tube had been inserted in her right arm – the only one that was unbandaged, and above the sheet on the small bed where she now lay.

Rita noted Elza's eye following the transfusion tube. "You lost a lot of blood out there, girl. You lost so much that you almost died before we could get you down here." She pointed to her now-open collar. "Ruined my tie makin' a tourniquet for your arm, so you wouldn't bleed to death. It's a good thing that you and Linda turned out to be the same blood type, once we got you down here and I could test you both."

"Yeah," Linda said. "Isn't it ironic? A few hours ago I almost drowned you – and now here I am, saving your life." She shook her head slowly. "Who would have figured?"

Elza moved her mouth to speak, but the words didn't come out. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, but for some reason she couldn't form the sounds. She concentrated hard, and put all of her strength into the effort, and finally managed to weakly gasp out two simple words. "How ... bad ...?"

Rita looked down, then up again. Her face was somber, and there were tears on the edges of her eyes. "Bad, girl. Real bad. Nobody gets slammed into a steel beam like you did and just walks away. That kind of stuff only happens in cartoons." She paused for a moment, finding the exact words she wanted to say, then continued. "You're having trouble talking. As you've probably already guessed, that's from the head trauma – and that's just the tip of the iceberg, Elza. You've got a bad concussion, your left cheekbone is shattered, your left shoulder was sprained so bad that it almost dislocated, and your left arm's broken in two places, one upper and one lower. That's from where you lost all that blood, because the upper break tore into a major artery and like I said earlier you almost bled to death. You've got four ribs on your left side that are definitely broken, you've got major swelling and bruising on your back where that pipe hit you – and by the way, your armor vest got completely trashed because of that. Split clean in two. I've never seen that done to body armor before – but it's a good thing you were wearing it. If you hadn't, you'd have been killed instantly." She took a breath, then continued. "It's also a good thing your back isn't broken, either, like we first thought, but all that swelling back there still isn't good for your spinal cord. More on that later. Anyway, going on ... your left wrist is sprained, you've got a major laceration on your left thigh where it caught on a support bolt for that beam, you've got indeterminate internal damage because you were coughing up blood right after we moved you in here – and that's just everything I know about right now, hon." She fixed her gaze on Elza with the most serious look Elza had ever seen on her face. "Can you move your legs?"

Elza was silent for several seconds. Her face twitched, as if she were concentrating, and then she shook her head. "No ..." she groaned.

"Oh, God," Rita said sadly. "I was afraid of that." She stood up and turned to a nearby rolling cart, on which was laid out an assortment of medicines and medical instruments. She picked up a replacement needle for a hypodermic and then leaned back over the bed. Linda moved up to the head of the bed, so both she and her transfusion tube would not become entangled in what Rita was about to do. Rita now pulled back the sheet, and for the first time Elza could see for herself the extent of her injuries. All of her clothing had been removed to facilitate Rita and Linda's earlier work, but Rita quickly redraped the sheet over her right leg, thigh, and side for the sake of her modesty. She couldn't see the injuries themselves because they were so heavily bandaged, but the amount of bandages involved was impressive. So were those parts of the large bruises on her right side which were visible beneath other smaller bandages, as well as the now-bandaged minor cuts and abrasions visible on the rest of her body. Rita now looked at Elza, and her expression remained serious. "This is eventually going to hurt, but that's a good thing. I need to see just how bad the nerve damage to your back might be."

Elza nodded. She was just as curious herself to know just how bad off she was.

Rita now poked the needle into a spot just above Elza's left knee and below the bandage wrapped around most of her thigh. "Can you feel that?" Rita asked.

Elza shook her head.

Rita now shifted to a spot high up on Elza's left thigh just above the bandage, and poked in the needle again. "How about that?"

Again, Elza shook her head.

On the third occasion Rita shifted to a spot almost even with the top of Elza's left hip. She stuck in the needle, and Elza flinched even before Rita could say a word. "Aaaaaahhhh ..." Elza moaned, nodding.

Rita now did the same with Elza's right leg, again redraping the bedsheet in order to provide Elza some modest cover. She got exactly the same results. With that, she rocked back on her heels, wiped the needle clean, and then discarded it into a nearby trash bin. She then pulled the sheet back up and over Elza. "Well, that tears it," she said sadly, looking down at her. "You're paralyzed from the waist down." She tried to smile, but it was obvious that it was forced. "Now there's a fair chance you'll get some sensation back in the upper part of your legs over time, once we get you out of here and get you some proper therapy, and a better-than-even chance that you'll recover partial or perhaps even most of the control over your bladder, your bowels, and your, ahmmm, plumbing – if you don't still have it now, that is. It all depends on how bad the nerve damage is, and I'm no expert on these things – but I like to hope for the best."

Elza shook her head weakly. She held up the forefinger of her right hand, for it was about all she could manage, and again struggled to speak. "No ... false ... hopes ... Rita ..."

"Who said anything about false hopes?" Rita responded, still forcing a smile. "I'm just telling you what similar cases have been like that I know about. And you don't need to abandon hope altogether, girl. You're alive, when by all rights you should be very much be dead right now – or even undead, perhaps. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be dead than undead."

Elza tried to laugh, but it came out more of a pained wheezing sound. "Me ... ter-ri-ble ... zombie ...."

Even Linda smiled this time. "She's got a point, you know," she said, looking up at Rita.

"I'll be the judge of that," Rita said, but she too was at least honestly smiling now, although hers was tinged with sadness. "In the meantime, Miss Elza, my prescription for you is to shut up, lie still, and rest." She leaned in close. "It's the best thing for you right now, hon, believe me."

"One ... more ... thing," Elza forced out, fighting for every word. "Left eye ... can't see ...."

The smile faded from Rita's face as she moved back. It was fairly obvious that she did not want to say what she was going to have to say, yet Elza had asked the question and it needed the answer she did not want to give. After a while, she spoke softly, her voice occasionally choking with emotion. "Elza ... when your head smacked into that beam ... when your cheekbone ... that is ... well ... one of the bone fragments, it went up .. and it ... Elza? Elza honey? You just don't have a left eye anymore." Those final words came out in a blurted, angst-ridden rush, and Rita's eyes filled with tears.

For a while there was no sound save for Rita's quiet sobbing and Elza's labored breathing; that is, until Elza stirred herself, and slowly spoke. "I ... see ...." She then smiled as best she could. "No ... I ... don't ...."

"Oh, Elza ...." Rita exclaimed, dropping to her knees beside the head of the bed and burying her tear-streaked face in Elza's pillow.

Elza turned her head just enough so that it touched RIta's. It was about all she could manage, given her condition. "Not ... your ... fault ..." she struggled to get out. "You ... did ... your best ... you ..." but with that she stopped. It was simply too much. She lay still, her head resting on Rita's while the older woman sobbed her gentle heart out, deeply saddened at what had happened to the formerly vibrant and active young woman that Elza Walker once had been. As for Linda, she had resumed her seat at the foot of the bed and looked at the floor, saying nothing.

* * * * *

The door to the Security Office opened, and Rita stepped through and into the wide expanse that was the Underground Lab's Pi Section Freight Arrival Area. Both men had been outside, for Rita had shooed them out once Elza had been brought in and put on the bed. They had used the last of their strength to clear the area, as well as finding and getting Rita and Linda the supplies they needed to properly treat Elza's many wounds. After that, both had taken turns sleeping and standing watch. Both of them had badly needed the rest, and they had both gone to sleep almost immediately once it was their turn. It was now John's turn at watch, and he looked up at Rita from where he was sitting against the wall, the SPAS-12 cradled in his lap. He then leaned over and nudged the sleeping Kevin. Instantly the RPD SPF officer had rolled over and was up in a ready crouch, his gun up and prepared to aim at whatever target presented itself. All that was in his sights, though, was Rita – and it looked as if she had been crying hard.

"She's up," Rita said, walking over to Kevin and sinking onto her knees beside him. Kevin immediately holstered his gun and relaxed into a half-sitting, half-kneeling position, and then put a comforting arm around Rita even as she continued to speak. The anguish was evident in her voice. "I told her, Kevin. I told her everything. I didn't hold any of it back. Oh, God, Kevin, why her?" She was now crying again, and she buried her head into his shoulder. He held her close and hugged her, slowly rocking back and forth and occasionally patting her back, even as she continued to cry and speak. "I mean, if I would have had to put any money on any one of us getting out of this alive, it would have been Elza! I'm sorry Kevin, and I hope you're not mad at me – but with those hunting and survival skills of hers, and that special tactical training, and her knowledge of weapons and all, I mean ... she would have been the one I'd have bet on! And now look at her! She's never going to make it out of here, Kevin! Not like that! It's impossible!"

"Yes, she is," Kevin said fiercely. "She's coming with us."

Rita leaned back and looked at him with amazement. "But how?!" she asked. "You know how bad her injuries are! And I'll tell you something else – she can't walk, Kevin! She's paralyzed from the waist down! How are we going to deal with that?!"

"John and I can go get that gurney we saw in that CAT scan room earlier," Kevin replied briskly, "and we'll push her on that until we can find that truck or whatever. Right, John?"

John was staring at the both of them with his mouth open. In a very small voice, he said, "Miss Elza cain't walk?"

"And just how far do you plan on pushing her, Kevin? Huh?!" Rita snapped, her frustration cutting through her own sorrow. Her voice now had a definite edge to it. "You know what the odds are of us getting out of here, having to drag along—"

"That's enough!" Kevin bellowed. He suddenly turned and grabbed Rita roughly by the shoulders with both hands, shaking her as he spoke. "I'm not leaving her behind! Do you hear! I had to leave Sherry behind! I'm not leaving Elza behind! I'm not leaving anyone behind ever again!!"

"Please!" Rita half-sobbed. "You're hurting me!"

They remained like that for only the briefest of moments, Kevin still shaking the now-fearful Rita – and then he suddenly felt two powerful hands grip his own shoulders. They clamped down so hard that he had no choice but to let go of Rita. He was then forcibly turned around and pulled to his feet to find himself staring straight into the face of an angry John Kendo. "Ah think youse need ta leave Miss Rita alone rite now," he stated, in a low-key but quite menacing manner.

Rita quickly ran around and grabbed one of John's arms. "Let him go, John!" she pleaded. "He didn't mean it! He's just upset! He didn't mean to hurt me and you know it! Let him go, John, please!"

John looked at Rita, and then back at Kevin, who was now visibly wincing under his powerful grip. He then let go. Kevin straightened at once, and began rubbing at his shoulders.

"Thank you, John," Rita said, placing a hand on the big man's shoulder. "I know you meant well. But Kevin didn't mean to do what he did. He's upset. Hell, we're all upset, after everything we've been through earlier today. I forgive him. I hope you will, too. Okay?" John looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. "Good," Rita said, obviously relieved. "Now go sit back down and resume your watch. All right?" The big man did as he was told; sitting back down and picking up the SPAS-12 again; however, he still kept half-an-eye on Kevin and Rita.

Rita now walked up to Kevin, who was still rubbing at his shoulders. "I— I'm sorry, Kevin. I didn't mean for that to happen. John can get ... a little carried away sometimes, you know. You have to try to see it the way he saw it, though."

Kevin didn't look at her. Inside, he was ashamed at what he had just done to her. "I'm sorry, Rita," he said softly. "I didn't mean to do what I did. I don't know what came over me just now."

"I do," Rita said, and she laid a hand on one of Kevin's arms. He stopped rubbing his shoulders once she did. "It's the good man in you getting too upset over having to think about making the right decision at a very bad time." She sighed, then began to massage Kevin's shoulders for him. "I'm sorry I even suggested leaving Elza behind. I kind of set myself up for the way you reacted, and I realize that now. I wouldn't want to leave her behind, either. But you did the right thing in getting us out of the Factory before those lickers overran us, Kevin." She now stopped to wiped away a tear, then resumed the massage again. "Sherry's a survivor, Kevin. She survived for four days without us, and I think she can do it again, provided she found a way around them and if she's still alive." Kevin snorted, but Rita continued. "But you're going have to face the facts, Kevin, whether you like them or not." With that she stopped the massage, put both hands on Kevin's shoulders, and then looked straight into his eyes. "You gotta let her go, Kevin. Sherry's beyond our help now, living or dead. What we have to worry about now is the present, and our biggest problem right now aside from the zombies and monsters is Elza. I don't mean that in a bad way, understand, but it's a fact. Having Elza along the way she is now is going to hamper us tremendously. We're going to have to make plans to deal with that which we wouldn't have had to do before, and it's going to require resources we may not always be able to find."

"Da Guns uv Navaroan," John said, from where he sat against the wall.

Both Kevin and Rita turned to look at John. "What was that?" Kevin asked.

"One of mah fav'rite war movehs," John said. "There's dis part in there whear one of den British Special Forces team guys falls off a cliff an' breaks his leg, and the leg gits gangreen. Havin' ta carry him wid his infectid leg slows da team down before they kin make it to da guns ta blow 'em up, and so's da Germans kitch up with 'em befor'n they kin git dere. So he has deir boss, Mr. Mallory, leave 'im behind wid a big-ass machine gun an' plenty of ammo so's he kin slow up da Germans an' let da rest of da team git to da guns. He thinks he's gonna get kilt, an' so do they, but in the end he winds up only gittin' captchered – but not befoar he kills a lot of dem Germans who wuld have oderwise kaut up an' captchered all uv 'em."

"It wasn't quite like that," Kevin said, somehow managing an echo of his trademark wry smile. "Not only did I see the movie, I read the book, too. Still, I get your point – only I'm not about to let Elza or any of the rest of you go off and go out like the Wild Bunch against those zombies and monsters while the rest of us get away. We'll all getting out of here, as a group, if I have anything to say about it, or ... you'll just have to find yourself a new leader."

Silence now filled the Arrival Area, almost to the point where it became unbearable. It was then that Rita spoke. "I don't see any reason to change horses in mid-stream now," she said quietly.

"Me, neddah," John said.

"Then it's settled," Kevin said firmly. "All of us are getting out of here – and that includes Elza, too."

* * * * *

Linda sat watching the figure lying on the bed. "She looks so helpless," she thought to herself. "She's a far cry from the gun-ho, ass-kicking, zombie-hunting young woman I first met yesterday." She shook her head. She had hated and even despised Elza then for being who she was, and making it look so easy, and then feeling so sorry for her own self being unable to even come close to measuring up that she had begun to act out of pure spite. Now the worm had turned, and it was Elza who was the helpless one – both figuratively and physically. The old Linda Merton would have rejoiced at this moment, and might have even taken out the pistol that the current Linda had in her pocket and used the opportunity to pump "that prissy little Redneck Rambo" full of more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese. All she could do now was ask herself, "Why her, and not me?"

She didn't realize that Elza had been watching her muse until she spoke. "Thanks."

Linda started, then turned and looked at Elza. "For what?" she asked.

Elza licked her lips. "Save ... my ... life," she managed to get out.

Linda shook her head. "I didn't save your life, Elza. I just happened to be the same blood type as you."

Elza slowly shook her head. "No ... one ... else ...?"

Linda paused at that. "No," she finally admitted.

Elza again smiled weakly. "Take ... credit ... Linda ..." she gasped, then lay still again. Her eye remained on Linda but she did nothing except breathe ... the same soft shudder that had become the norm for her ever since she had regained consciousness.

Linda again got up and moved to the head of the bed, then knelt down there. Elza's eye followed her, but she still said nothing. Linda propped the arm giving the transfusion elbow-up on the edge of the bed, then looked at Elza. "You know," she said, "I started out my part in our little shared adventure by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This one time, though, I was in the right place and at the right time to actually do some good – and I've got the cuts and bruises to prove it." She now fixed her gaze on Elza's remaining eye. "I'm only going to say this once, Miss Walker. I don't want to see you die. Not like this. This isn't right for you. You're so full of life, or zeal, or zest, or whatever – I don't know, but whatever it is you have a helluva lot more of it than I do. I should have been the one who got speared with that pipe, not you. I deserved it. Hell, I'm marked for death by Umbrella anyway, and I know it. Besides – who would miss Linda Merton, anyway? You've probably got lots of friends, and you make friends easy. Who would have been bothered if Linda Merton had died earlier today?"

There was a pause, and then the gasping word came. "Me ...."

Linda looked with surprise at Elza, but all she saw in that half-covered face was compassion and pity. She couldn't take it, and turned away.

* * * * *

It wasn't long before Rita returned inside the Security Office. She unhooked both Linda and Elza from the portable transfusion apparatus, declaring that it had done its job for now, and then Linda helped her wheel it to the side. Linda also helped Rita tuck Elza under the bed sheets before Rita went to the door and let the others in. "Can't have the boys going all goggle-eyed over a naked hottie like you," she had said with a forced grin. Elza had just shook her head weakly, but a smile had danced across her bruised lips as she did. Once she was ready, Rita opened the door and let the two men inside. Both men had pointedly ignored the sight of Elza's recently washed and scrubbed clothes hanging from a makeshift line at the back of the Security Office. Rita herself had washed them in the sink and hung them up to dry before going to sleep earlier that day.

John at once sank to his knees beside the bed. He started to reach out to Elza, but stopped himself even as Rita's hand was in mid-motion to slap him down again. "Awwww, Miss Elza," he wailed, his own eyes moist with tears. He contented himself with grabbing the edge of the bed instead. Kevin stood behind him, looking sad but remaining silent.

Rita maneuvered around in front of them, down by the foot of the bed, and addressed them both. "Now you two guys know how bad a shape Elza is in, so this visit is going be brief. And don't ask lots of complicated questions, either. Elza took a bad blow to the head and it's scrambled her noggin.' She can understand you all right, but she can't hardly put two words together. So keep it short, simple, and brief, and then out you two go to fetch that gurney. Got it?"

"Tell you what," Kevin suggested. "We got some time before the sun goes down topside, and all of us are rested now. Why don't we do a better search of this place than we did before? Maybe we can find something even more useful than that gurney." He smiled at Rita. "Like you tried to point out earlier, I'd hate to have to push a laden gurney all the way to the quarantine line, even with Elza on it and all of us pushing it in shifts."

Rita started to say something, then stopped. Instead, a smile crept across her own face. "Thanks," she said, and she meant it. "Sounds like a good idea."

"Besides," Kevin added, "If I had gotten my head slammed into a steel beam like Elza did, then my noggin' would be scrambled, too." He now looked down at Elza, who was likewise looking up at him. "Howya doin' kid?"

Elza smiled weakly. "Could ... be ... better ..." she managed to get out. "Could ... be ... dead."

"Miss Elza ..." John again whimpered from beside the bed.

Elza now looked over at him, and again gave a weak smile. "Don't ... John ... big men ... don't ... cry ...."

It was no use. John's eyes were so full of tears that before long he was blubbering like a baby. Rita gently took him by the arm, helped him stand up, and led him back out of the Security Office. Both Linda and Kevin watched them go, saying nothing. The door closed, and after a few seconds opened again. Rita returned alone, and came to stand beside Kevin. She sought his side, and he put his arm around her. "Such a sweet man," she said softly. "I think what's happened to Elza has hurt him more than any of us."

"Remember what he said back in the Factory, in that security hut, back when you were hurt?" Linda offered. "He said he didn't think it was right to see a woman 'uncovered and hurt bad,' or something like that."

"No, it's more than that," Rita said. "I think this is one of those rare cases of opposites attracting – or better yet, learning to work together. Not romantically, mind you, but as really good friends. She's a headstrong young woman and he's about as male as a man can get – yet they had to set all that aside so they could do what had to be done in order to survive. And along the way, they became really good friends. It's too bad you and her were never able to mesh like that."

"Yeah," Linda admitted, folding her arms and looking down at the floor. "I was too busy being selfish, and feeling sorry for myself, and feeling that just having to deal with Elza was just one more burden on my already weighted shoulders." She looked over at Elza, whose eye had closed again. She appeared to be sleeping now, for her breathing had settled down and her chest no longer suffered from occasional spasms. "I thought I was bad off then, but now, after what's happened to Elza ...." Linda let the words trail off, and did not finish them.

After a while, Kevin leaned over and kissed Rita on the forehead. "John and I had better get started on that search, hon."

Rita turned and smiled up at him. "That's the second time you've called me hon, Kevin. Did you know that?"

Kevin gave Rita a look of mock surprise. "I did?" he said. "When was the first one?"

"Oh, I think you know, you joker," she said. Before he could do anything else she slipped in and gave him a quick proper kiss. "You and John can run off and play now, while we get Elza dressed and in some condition so she can be moved – carefully, of course, but as soon and as quickly as possible and as her injuries permit. And you better go get John some tissues while you're at it, or maybe a roll of toilet paper – maybe even a roll of paper towels. He's cryin' a regular river out there right now."

"It's probably because because he feels bad about not being able to protect Elza from that thing," Kevin said. He clenched one fist and smacked it into his other palm, then raised and waved it in frustration. "Jesus God Almighty, but we should have seen that coming. Hell, I even predicted it was going to get back up."

"And all of us thought it was stone cold dead after Elza put all those bullets in its head, and pretty much pulped its brains in the process," Rita said. "Damnit, Kevin, but I've never seen any zombie or monster so far come back from the dead like that! You think maybe Elza was onto something? Like maybe there's another secret Umbrella virus on the loose?"

Neither one of them noticed Linda unfold her arms and begin looking at them rather intently in reaction to Rita's last words. As for Kevin, he only shook his head. "God, I hope not," he replied.

"Why not?" Rita asked.

Kevin's face was grim, and his voice now took on a deadly serious tone. "Because if it has, Rita ... we're all screwed."

* * * * *

Somewhere far above their heads, back topside in what was left of Raccoon City, the sun was completing its downward arc towards the horizon. Night would soon fall – and some time after that happened, there would begin yet another adventure for another remarkable young woman with strong ties to Raccoon City. However, her tale is not part of this tale – and the experiences that she had and shared with other survivors, which were no less remarkable than those of Elza Walker and her companions, have been told elsewhere. They will not be allowed to intrude here.

In the meantime, deep beneath the surface within the virtual city that was the Underground Lab section of the Umbrella Factory Complex, two men moved with purpose through the first level of its Pi Section. Their first visit to this and the next of the Pi Section levels had been a hurried one, mainly to quickly round up the medicines and medical supplies that Rita and Linda had needed early that morning in order to save Elza's life, and they had done little more beyond that than blow away any zombie or monster that got in their way. Now they were back and searching more slowly and systematically. This time, they were looking for anything and everything that was both portable and served some purpose that might aid them and the others in their intended escape from Raccoon City. High-powered sedatives, medicines, and both extra bandages and related medical supplies were high on that list – for Elza was going to need all of it and perhaps more if Kevin and his friends were going to get the badly wounded young woman out of Raccoon City alive. Actually, Kevin had a nice little laundry list Rita had prepared for him with Linda's help, for Linda was familiar with the kind of drugs and medicines that would be available inside an Umbrella research lab complex that would correspond to what Rita needed to care for Elza. Because of that, she had been able to rattle off a rather long list of medicine and drug names at will. Rita in turn had helped her to trim this back to something more manageable, focusing primarily on painkillers and sedatives, and it was this same list that Kevin now carried in one of his pockets and occasionally consulted as needed. John, on the other hand, was doing what he did best – playing the "muscle" of their group. It was always he who went into the next room first, doing his best to clear it with his "zombie knockah" alone in order to conserve ammo. If that failed, however, the SPAS-12 that Kevin had loaned him and that he carried slung on his shoulder would immediately be brought into play.

"It's ahbout da only thing I kin think of ta do fer Miss Elza," he said once, after a particularly violent encounter with an escaped hunter in the Pi Section's central core shaft, "but Ise a-gonna do it. I owes her a lot, an' ahm gonna make shur she gits outta Raccoon City alive."

Kevin had simply nodded when John had said that. Their recent past misunderstanding up in the Arrival Area was now long behind them, and they were working together as teammates and friends once again. Also, like John, Kevin was doing it for Elza. He had developed a healthy respect for the remarkable young woman who had been part of this leg of his and Rita's Outbreak adventure – and although he no longer blamed himself for what had happened to her in the Factory, he still held himself responsible for seeing to it that she was safely evacuated in spite of her grievous injuries. After all, it was what a leader did, right? Kevin had smiled to himself at that thought, and it had also brought back his own recollections of Allistar Maclean's The Guns of Navarone. He too considered it one helluva piece of World War II fiction, and he could see for himself the parallels between his current situation and that of New Zealand mountaineer Keith Mallory in that tale. He was going to pull it off, too – just like Mallory had done in the story, despite anything and everything that the goddamn Outbreak had and would continue to throw at him. He, Kevin Ryman, would succeed. He owed at least that much to Elza and the others. He would succeed.

They had been forced to go on a little side quest to restore power to parts of the Pi Section where it had been cut off. This had been a lot easier than when they had to do the same thing yesterday evening back at the old RPD station. The reason for this was that many of the doors through which they had to pass were of the powered sliding variety, and only those that had either been on a different circuit or had only been halfway open when the power was cut were passable. All of the rest were sealed shut and thus effectively locked when the power was cut. Once it had been turned back on, fully three-quarters of Pi Section that had not been accessible before was now open to them. Previously they had quickly searched all but two of the first-level labs. They had been part of the open section and thus open to access before. This time around, Kevin elected to start his new search with the residential wing instead.

"Why?" John asked.

"People always keep unusual things in their quarters which won't be part of any on-site official inventories and such," Kevin answered, talking as they walked across the core shaft bridge and through the sliding door to the residential section. "That was the same reason I wanted to get to the Locker Room earlier back at the RPD. There was probably something in there we really could have used. I'm not going to blow a second chance to do the same, now that I have it. Besides," and with this he grinned. "I'm tired of looking at glass cabinets with shelves full of itty bitty bottles. It makes my eyes hurt."

John thought for a moment, and then grunted in reply. "You is gonna search dose oddah labs agin later, rite?" he asked. "Miss Elza mite need some of dem itty bitty bottles."

"I will," Kevin assured him, still grinning. "Promise."

Kevin would have said more, but it was about that time when they heard a familiar shuffling coming from both ends of the corridor ahead into which their corridor ran and dead-ended. Both Kevin and John immediately went into walking carries with weapons raised and at the ready. Within seconds, three Crimson Zombies wearing the ruins of stereotypical lab coats, smocks, and scrubs had popped into view – one on the left side of the intersection and two on the right. Neither man needed a signal; they both raised their weapons as one and opened fire. All three Crimsons went down before they even had a chance to set themselves for a charge. The two men then continued their cautious approach, for the shuffling sound had not stopped. They reached the edge of the intersection, then Kevin looked to John and nodded. John nodded back, and then the two of them simultaneously swung into the intersection, Kevin taking the left end and John the right, guns raised and pointed down their respective corridor sections as they completed their spins. There was nothing in Kevin's sight save a turn to the right some distance down and a door located at that turn; however, a split second later he heard John's shotgun roar from behind him. He turned just in time to see another Crimson drop near a gentle right-hand turn in John's corridor section, and then heard and saw John fire again as yet another Crimson appeared from around the turn. Neither one of the Crimsons which John had blasted got back up. The two humans remained frozen in their firing crouches, listening and looking around, but there was neither sight nor sound of any other foe.

Kevin relaxed, reholstering his Glock autopistol. As soon as John saw Kevin relax, he did the same. The SPAS-12 went back over his shoulder, and his "zombie knockah" appeared in his gun hand instead. "Musta been havin' a pardy down hear," John said, grinning at Kevin.

"Yeah," Kevin replied evenly. He looked over the carnage, noting the remains of the clothing that were on the bodies as well as the pattern in which they had fallen. "Same as before, looks like," he said to John. "More staffers. We still haven't seen those security guards that must have been working out of that office, nor any sign of them."

"Ah hope we find sumfun soon," John said. "I'm jes' guessin', but are we startin' ter run low on bullets agin?"

Kevin nodded. "I'd like to think the security down here had more at their disposal than that one box of nine-millimeter shells we found in the Security Office when we first arrived." He frowned. "I'm kinda hoping we get lucky with the residential section."

"How d'ya know dis is wher everone lives?" John asked.

"I looked on the map upstairs on the computer in the Security Office before we left," Kevin said. "Besides, did you see in which direction almost all the bodies are bunched, and from where most of those Crimsons came? Your end of this corridor. That, according to the map upstairs, is the residential section." Kevin once again pulled his gun, but this time held it in what might best be described as a relaxed walking carry. "Let's go see what we can see."

It took a second for what Kevin had said to sink in, and then John was hurrying after Kevin. "Wait for me, boss!"

* * * * *

Rita had decided to let Elza rest some more, and wait until Kevin and John's search was close to being done, before she began dressing her for the next leg of their Outbreak adventure. The poor girl had been through hell and almost died because of it, and she needed every bit of strength she could get from just plain rest in order to help her badly damaged body mend itself. That Elza would never recover from some of her more serious injuries was an inescapable fact, yet Rita was a firm believer in the old medical adage of "physician, heal thyself." She had plenty of experience of her own with the human body's remarkable ability to not only bounce back from almost anything, but to also compensate for and work around anything it couldn't. Rita had no doubt Elza would make a remarkable recovery, even if it wasn't a full one, given the young woman's drive and determination. All poor Elza needed was time to rest and recover – and as long as they had a little time to give, she ought to be allowed to use it to its fullest. That was why Rita was helping Linda conduct a thorough inventory of all of their supplies while Elza slept – deciding what they needed and no longer needed, and fitting as much of what they had decided was essential into two oversized medical carry bags that Kevin and John had found in their first hurried search. Rita's old and well-worn RPD backpack would be retained, however, as a central ammunition cache. John now wore that backpack more than she did, and the weight of all that ammo could easily be borne by his more massive shoulders. Both the little carry bag that they had been with them through much of their Outbreak adventure and Linda's duffel bag from the Sewers would be left behind.

"Urgh," Linda exclaimed, as she reached down into the bottom of the backpack and pulled out a large metal hand crank with a folding handle. "You mean to say you guys have been hauling this thing around ever since we left the RPD?"

"Yeah," Rita said, laughing, "We thought we were going to need it there for the security shutters, but we got the power back on and didn't need it after all. You guys could have used it in the Sewers with that spinning bridge if it hadn't been with us instead. After that, I think we kinda forgot about it."

Linda eyed the crank as she held it. "You know, just as soon as I dump this thing out of our supplies, we're gonna arrive somewhere where we're gonna need it."

"Isn't that the way it always works?" Rita said with a chuckle.

"Yeah," Linda said doubtfully, still eyeing the crank.

"I have an idea," Rita said. "Why don't you put it on that desk over there, in that empty space beside that computer? You can start a third stack there, if you like. Things we don't think we're going to need anymore but are just odd enough that we actually might later down the line. How's that sound? That way, we don't have to make a decision on them right away, and it'll help draw the pile down for the stuff that we really need to pack. After that, if there's any room left, we can go through it again and add some or maybe even all of it back – depending on how much room's left in the duffel bags."

Linda thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right." She got up, walked over to the desk, and set the crank down with a clunk! "That'll be the maybe pile." She came back over and sat down in front of their assorted inventory, then looked at Rita. "Let's just hope it doesn't get any bigger. And our discard pile is far too small. It needs to be bigger."

"Room ... for ... me?" Elza rasped from the bed.

The two women immediately got up and moved to the side of the bed. Elza was looking up at them with her one remaining eye. "Hey, you're supposed to be resting," Rita chided.

Elza slowly shook her head. "Leave ... me ...." she managed to say, looking up at her and pleading with her one good eye. "Can't ... walk ... can't ... fight .... can't—"

"And can't never could do nothin', as my dearly departed Daddy used to say," Rita said, and she leaned down to get closer to Elza. She spoke to her now as a parent might lecture a wayward child. "Now you listen to me, Miss Walker. We already had this discussion while you were out of it, and the vote was unanimous. You're coming with us, and that's that. No argument and no discussion." She paused a beat, and then added with a grin, "And no last-stand heroics while the rest of us get away, either. Kevin's already made it quite clear he's not gonna tolerate any such antics. So don't you be thinkin' about pullin' any, either, or I'll lay you across my lap and tan your hide but good. You just concentrate on gettin' better, and let us worry about gettin' you outta here. Is that clear, young lady?"

There was a pause of a few seconds, then a weak grin spread across Elza's face. "Yes ... ma'am," she said, with just an echo of the old and self-assured Elza Walker in her voice.

"All right, then." Rita leaned back and raised up, so that she was standing beside Linda again. She looked over at Linda and spoke. "Anything you'd like to add, Miss Merton?"

Linda smiled. "Only that I'm with you and them, despite my past bad behavior." She looked at Elza. "Remember," she added, "they've already tanned my hide back in the Sewers, and I can tell you from experience that they're pretty good at it. If I was you, I wouldn't argue with them. I'd just enjoy the ride."

Elza nodded and smiled. "Friends ..." she got out. "All ... of you. Such ... good ... friends ...."

* * * * *

Kevin and John rounded the turn to find themselves in front of a long and straight section of corridor whose far end terminated in another door. It was exactly identical to the one through which they had passed from the central shaft to get to the residential part of Pi Section. There were no zombies or monsters present in this corridor section; however, there was plenty of evidence of their passing. There were scattered papers and other such detria up and down the full length of the corridor. There were blood stains and blood smears on the floor and both walls, on the door at the end, and on and around the doors lining either side of the hall. There were four of these, two to a side, at regularly spaced intervals. The blood was the heaviest at the body which lay to their left about halfway down the corridor, and about halfway between the two doors on that side where a rather obvious section break showed were the wall panels joined. The body was mostly eaten and had been decomposing for some time. Kevin and John were by now used to both the sight and the odor of such things - one did not fight zombies for long without having to make that adjustment - but the obvious signs of both how violently the poor person must have died and how that body had then been savaged was enough to turn even the strongest man's stomach. Kevin guessed that Rita or Linda might have been able to tell whether or not it had been male or female in real life, but he couldn't. There just wasn't enough left for him to do so.

John whistled. "Mahn, oh mahn. Dat Miss Murdon said ding's 'ld be reel bad down heah. Looks lak she wuz right." He pointed to the door at the far end. "Any idear wheah dat goes, boss?"

"Well," Kevin said, "according to the map upstairs, that's what it called the New Residential Shaft. It's new construction – see the break in the wall paneling after the first door on the left, and how the new paneling goes all the way down the corridor from there? And how it looks newer than the stuff back up here?"

"Yeah," John said, squinting in the direction Kevin was pointing. "Looks lak dey took ah bran' new section jes' lak dis one, and den hooked da two up togeddah."

Kevin nodded. "The notes on the map on the computer upstairs said all of this had been done fairly recently. Before that, they probably only had a small maintenance staff who lived down here all the time – keepers for the test animals, custodians, volunteers, and so on. Those notations on the map also said that they were getting ready to expand the residence wings of all six of the Lab core sections, too – as well as build new ones in some of the other underground locations. Looks like Umbrella was getting ready to house a lot of people down here."

"Whadevah foar?"

Kevin looked at him. "I think they knew what might happen, and were making plans to get their own people down here and out of harm's way while the rest of us bought the proverbial farm. After that, they'd pop back up, sweep away the zombies and monsters with whatever weapons and ammo they had stored up, and become the new masters of the Earth." He smiled wryly. "Just like in some of those sci-fi and monster movies that both of us have watched at some time, no doubt. They've probably had similar events happen before, only on a smaller scale and with as much of a news blackout as their power and money could arrange. Something must have happened with Raccoon City, though ... something they didn't expect and for which they weren't prepared. They got caught with their asses in the air just as bad as we did – which is why they're scrambling so hard now to cover them."

It took a few seconds for what Kevin had said to sink into John's simple mind, and then his eyes lit up. "Oh, yeah! Lak them 'pokalippic movehs and such."

Kevin nodded, smiling. "Yeah. Just like that."

John now looked thoughtful. He removed his hand from the stock of his shotgun and began using it to scratch the back of his neck. "Kinda makes ya wondah. Whut da hell happened to trow 'em off dat bad? Ah mean, if-n yer right, dey wuzn't expectin' da Outbreak dis soon."

Kevin nodded. "Nope. Like I said, they were probably just as surprised as we were when it went down."

John still looked thoughtful. "So ... whaddya think happened ta set dis all off?"

Kevin said nothing for a while, then he took a deep breath. "I haven't a clue, John. All I know is that we're stuck in it, and we gotta get outta here the best way we can. And that also means finding some way of taking Elza out with us." He raised his Glock to a walking carry. "We've already lost Sherry. I'm not losing Elza too, John. Not if I can help it. C'mon – we'd better get back to doing our search."

"Rite, boss."

* * * * *

It had taken a long time to get Elza even partially dressed. Getting her into her briefs had been no problem, given her paralyzed legs, aside from trying not to jostle Elza too severely and thus aggravate her other injuries. Elza took the indignity as well as one might in her situation, and even tried to cracked a joke for the benefit of Rita and Linda about having her diapers changed. This had caused them to laugh, and it broke the tension both had been feeling about this task.

The biggest problem they had were with Elza's outer clothes. It was a rather obvious one, because she could no longer fit into them due to the heavy bandages around her left leg and bracing her broken ribs, as well as the unwelcome fact of both the splints and heavy wrappings around her broken left arm. Rita had thought ahead, however, and among the things which Kevin and John had rounded up for her earlier were several sets of laboratory scrubs, jackets, and footsies. A little experimentation had shown that the largest of these would comfortably fit over Elza's bandages. With that her well-worn jacket from the Sewers and her even more worn firesuit pants and biker boots were set aside, along with her much-savaged black t-shirt – which was barely staying together, anyway. Rita bagged these and put them with their must-take pile of supplies. When Elza had shot her a questioning look, Rita had smiled back at her. "You'll want some souvenirs to remind your grandkids of this lovely little adventure we've been on," she grinned.

Elza grinned back, then spoke. "T-shirt ... go ahead ... throw away. Not ... good enough ... shape ... to keep."

Rita looked at her for a moment, and then her face lit up with the biggest smile Elza had seen on it since the young woman had been crippled. "Hey! It's not as hard for you to talk as it was before, and you're not pausing as much! See there? Sounds like you're gettin' better already." She laughed, and then nodded. "I'll go ahead and throw away that t-shirt. Like you said, it's not much more than a large black rag now, anyway," she added wryly.

Elza's smile was also stronger than before. "Feel better ... too. Head ... a bit ... more clear."

"Well, we had you under pretty heavy sedation before," Rita said, "but now it's had time for some of it to wear off – and some of that swelling inside your skull must have gone down quite a bit, too. One or the other's probably it. Just a minute, Elza. Here Linda, help me with these bottoms." Linda obliged, lifting up one of Elza's legs, and Rita began working an oversize set of light blue scrub pants over and up it. She grinned at Elza. "Diaper time again, honey."

Elza nodded. "S'okay ... just ... make sure ... they're clean."

Both Rita and Linda laughed. Rita was laughing so hard that she had to motion to Linda to swap legs, so she could work the scrub pants onto Elza's other leg. "Well, I for one am glad to see your sense of humor is back," she said, once she had stopped laughing enough to catch her breath. "That's always a good sign. Now help me with her middle, Linda. Elza, if this hurts at all, you just let us know. We'll go as slow as we can, okay?"

It wasn't long after that before Elza was once again dressed – not in her red-and-white firesuit of old, but in a very large set of light blue short-sleeved scrubs that both covered her and allowed enough room for her many bandages beneath them. They were thin, which made her feel a bit chill, but that changed once Rita and Linda pulled both the sheet and top cover of the bed back up and over her body. Soon enough she was warm again, and she looked up at Rita and Linda after all was done. "Thanks," she said, and she meant it.

"You're welcome," Rita said. "Just don't count on me waiting on you hand and foot like this once we get outta here – got it?"

Elza nodded. "Got it."

"And now I think I'm going to go change too, relieve myself as well, and wash off in the sink while I'm at it." Linda announced, picking up two sets of the scrubs. One of them was a half-size smaller than the other. "I have been wearing these filthy police coveralls ever since we left the police station, I am in bad need of a bath, and I need to wash my hair." She looked at Rita. "You should too, you know."

"No, you go ahead," Rita said. "I'll be all right for now. Don't get me wrong – I'll clean up eventually. I just wanna make sure we get outta here first, that's all, and someone's gonna have to keep an eye on Elza from now on until that happens. Anyway, I want the place where I clean up to have a nice, full-size tub, complete with a bubble bath, where I can strip down and climb into and not get out all week."

"Sounds like heaven," Linda said. She made sure she had her gun, then headed for the door. "I'll be back in a while."

"And if you don't come back, I'm gonna come lookin' for you," Rita said. "Be careful, Linda. The boys may have cleaned out this part of the Lab earlier, but that doesn't mean something else might have sneaked back in."

"I'll be careful," Linda said. "I promise." With that she left, and the door closed behind her.

Rita walked over to where she and Linda had been working before. All of their supplies had been sorted and arranged. Everything was ready to pick up and go the minute Kevin decided it was time. The only thing they needed now was a way to move Elza. She took the chair in front of the computer and sat down, sighing heavily. Nothing to do now but wait.

The radio crackled and sounded the call note, so Rita reached over and picked it up. She keyed the mike. "Rita here. Find anything, Kevin?"

"Yeah," Kevin said, his voice distorted with static. "Two things. First we found some explosives in one of the private quarters of the residential wing."

"Explosives?"

"Yeah, part of a block of C4. The guy who had it in his room also left a note talking about how the Outbreak started. He said that Umbrella Security attacked the lab and shot up the senior staff, then tried to make off with a new experimental virus on which a certain Dr. William Birkin, the project manager, had been working for a long time."

"That's Sherry's father," Rita interjected.

"Yeah," Kevin continued. "He got killed, but one of his test subjects apparently escaped in all the commotion and trashed the place. It also went after those Umbrella Security goons, too. Killed the lot of them, according to this guy; however, a bunch of T-virus samples also got smashed in the process, and that's how the virus got out. Anyway, by the time he wrote this note there were only a handful of humans left down here. He had found the C4 earlier on a dead Security Service dude and was going to use it to try to blow up the Lab's main reactor, and thus seal the place off. The note ends with him saying he was going out to look for a primer or detonator. I think we can both guess what happened to him."

"Yeah," Rita said somberly. "What else did you find?"

"Enough rooms to house a couple hundred people, Rita. Right now I'm standing with John in a balcony alcove overlooking an entire shaft of brand new sleeping quarters, going as far up and down as the eye can see. Umbrella was apparently planning on stashing a bunch of its own people down here if something happened, then popping back up when it was done."

"Are you sure it's not part of the original Lab, Kevin? This thing dates back to the Cold War, you know."

"No, I'm sure. It's all new construction and it was marked as such on that map on that computer where you are. Hell, Rita, the few new rooms we've looked at in this section aren't even furnished. I'd say whatever their plans were, they got interrupted by the Outbreak, which they didn't expect – at least, not so soon."

Rita nodded, although Kevin couldn't see her. "Anything else?"

"That's all for now. We're going to go ahead and backtrack the research sections proper, then head back up to the Arrival Area. I've been wondering all this time what exactly we're going to find on the other side of that big-ass loading door that's out there by the lift. Map says it goes to an old freight staging area which is now used mainly for storage – but it also connects to that central loop tunnel that Linda was talking about earlier. You know – the one that hooks up with everything down here and then all the way across town and then some? According to the map, there's a marked-off section of corridor coming out of that same junction which is marked Surface Access Tunnel."

"You think it may be another way out?"

"Well, they had to get the trucks and all that freight down here somehow before they had the lifts, as well as haul all of that broken-up rock out of the way, back when they were building this place. They probably sealed it off once they had that big freight elevator and those other lifts going, since they didn't need it anymore."

"But Kevin, if you're right, wouldn't they have closed that off and filled it in a long time ago?"

"Maybe, maybe not." There was a pause before the radio crackled and Kevin continued. "If they had, then it probably would have said so on the map – but the map shows that it's still open. Who knows? Umbrella might've kept it open for emergency use. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to look. We'll stop by before we do, though. How's things on your end?"

"Ready whenever you are. All we need is something on which to move Elza."

There was another pause, and then a chuckle. "Guess we'll be bringing that gurney back with us after all on our return trip. Haven't seen any loose stretchers or wheelchairs about, nor anything else we can use like that."

"It's probably the best thing, given her condition," Rita responded.

"In that case, we'll finish up down here and head your way with that gurney once we're done. Love you. Kevin out."

"I love you, too. Out."

Rita set the radio back down. She sat still for a moment, then turned to look at Elza, who was now awake and watching her. "Looks like we're going to be cooling our heels for a while yet."

Elza let out a faint chuckle. "Maybe ... you should ... freshen ... up, too."

"What, and leave you all alone in here?" Rita said in a soft mocking tone. "What are you going to do if a zombie decides to just wander in here?"

"Offer .. him ... my arm ... ... appetizer." Elza said, her face taking on a fair approximation of the grin that at one time had so exasperated Kevin whenever he saw it on her – usually after she had just delivered a cutting remark or retort.

"Well, now," Rita said, chuckling. "Looks like the old Elza we all know and love is back – well, mostly, anyway." She thought for a moment, and then spoke again. "You know, I'm willing to bet money that you're going to make one hell of a paraplegic once the rest of you has healed back up."

Elza nodded. "Just ... another ... challenge. I like ... challenges. Who else ... gets chance ... to learn ... to live life ... over ... again ... in ... new way?"

"That, young lady, is the right attitude," Rita said, grinning. "Hearing that tells me more than anything else that you're firmly on the road to recovery. She leaned back in her chair. "You know, when a friend of mine who's a friend of a friend of one of Mr. Spencer's doctors told me that his doctor told him that he was so sick that he was going to end up in a wheelchair himself, they said he pitched a regular hissy fit. Imagine that! Somebody with all that wealth and power, with the world at his fingers, and in just a few years he wound up not much better than you are right now, hon. I heard he never really got over it. It's too bad he didn't have your attitude about it." She sighed wistfully. "All that money and all that power couldn't buy him a new set of legs, nor could they save him from that disease which took them from him and his health as well." She smiled at Elza. "Who knows how things might have gone for him if he'd just had your attitude about it?"

"I met him ... once." Elza said.

Rita looked at her for a moment, eyes opened in surprise, then she slowly nodded. "That's right ... you did. He had to interview you for that all-expenses paid college scholarship you got from Umbrella, didn't he?" She wheeled the chair close to the bed. "What's he like? I've never met him myself, you know. I've only seen him in person a few times, but I never got the chance to talk with him."

"He's ... a very ... strong-willed ... man," Elza said. "He knew ... he knows ... he's ... slowly dying. Fighting it ... in his ... own way ... like me. There ... was ... something ... I .. did not ... expect, though."

"What's that?" Rita asked, intrigued.

"He said ... he has ... no scruples ..."

"You got that right!" Rita interjected.

Elza nodded, continuing. "Yet ... he said ... still has ... sense ... of honor. Takes ... great pride ... in ... Spencer name. Related ... to ... kings ... and queens ... of England." She paused and took a long shuddering breath, and then continued. "That's why .. when it all ... happened ... he ... came back ... from Europe ... to see me. So upset ... so angry ... at what ... his son ... had done ... to me."

Rita sat still for several seconds, the import of Elza's words having caught her by surprise. Yet she had suspected something like this had happened to Elza – but with a Spencer? It was almost unthinkable. "What did he do to you?" she asked quietly.

Elza looked at her. "I think ... it's time ... I ... told you ... mama-san ...."

\-------------------------

Chapter 22 - Reminisce

Linda silently cursed as she raced back to the Security Office. She had taken a lot longer to clean up, bathe, and change than she had expected. After all, it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to take a bath when your main water source was a bathroom sink, and Linda had no experience in such things. She had done as best as she could, dried out her hair, slipped into her new clothes, thrown the old ones away in the nearest waste bin, and then hurried back to rejoin Rita and the wounded Elza. Fortunately nothing had attacked her, and nothing tried as she passed through the hallway door for the nearby bathrooms into the corridor next to the Security Office. The heavy double door at the end of that corridor connected to another corridor that eventually led to the Power Room for Pi Section; however, they had dared not try it. The one chance Linda had taken using that Umbrella ID card in the freight elevator to activate the Lab's security system, and her emphatic warning about its use, had made all of them leery about her using it again. Linda's warning had been a serious one. Because of that one swipe, it was only a matter of time now before somebody in the computer section of Umbrella corporate noticed that the card had been used in an area where everyone was supposed to be dead. They would of course report it – whether its use was authorized or not. Once they did, the Umbrella Security Service was going to swarm down on the Underground Lab like a pack of jackals closing for a certain kill. Linda sincerely hoped that using Birkin's ID card instead of her own would confuse whoever eventually detected its use, and buy them some much-needed time to recover and escape before the Security Service was dispatched to the area. She would have liked to have used Birkin's ID to activate one of the emergency escape trains far below, but that was too risky. Using it in that fashion would have almost certainly been picked up – and then all Umbrella Security would have had to do was simply wait, and execute them as they came out of the appropriate train tunnel on the other side of the Arklay Mountains. They would not be expecting Kevin's plan to go back up to the surface by an alternate path and escape that way, and that was a good thing. As he and the others constantly said, "One can always hope."

Linda knocked on the door and called out to let Rita know it was her and not some zombie or Umbrella Security paramilitary pulling a fast one. The door soon opened and Rita appeared, gun drawn and held at the ready all the same. One did not survive the Outbreak for as long as had she and the other survivors by throwing caution to the winds. She nodded and let Linda in, then closed and locked the door behind her. Linda saw that Elza was asleep again, and pulled up the other chair in the room beside the one Rita had near Elza's side. She started to sit down, but Rita motioned that they should move the chairs to the far side of the room. Linda helped Rita do that, as quietly as they could, and then they both sat down.

"Elza just dozed off," Rita said quietly. "She's tuckered out again." She looked at Linda, then dug through some of their new scrounged-up supplies and handed Linda a small comb. "How's the new outfit?"

"A bit more breezy than I'd like, but at least these scrubs are clean," Linda said, taking the comb from Rita and starting to work her hair with it. It was a good thing her hair was almost as short as Rita's. "It's too bad they don't make scrubs with long sleeves. By the way, thanks for that set of men's boxers. I feel a lot better bottomside now. Wherever did Kevin and John find them?"

"In that same supply cabinet where they found all of those scrubs," Rita said. "I told 'em to keep an eye out for something like that during their first search, while you were busy with Elza and I was telling 'em what medicines we needed and all. I figured you had gotten tired enough of running around without any underwear. I had to guess at the size, but I'm guessin' I guessed right."

Linda chuckled softly. "Close enough. Too bad they couldn't find anything for women."

"Scrubs are universal, and so are boxers – you know that," Rita said. "I'm guessin' they had the boxers on hand because of so many men on the staff. The women either kept their own briefs separate or in their quarters. Maybe they'll find something on the next go-round."

"Maybe, but for now I'm all right," Linda said. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you. You're awfully good as an unlicensed medic. How did you get that way, and why didn't you ever go into the field?"

Rita's eyes brightened, and she let out a soft laugh. "I almost did, once. I had the opportunity for paramedic training back when I first moved to Memphis, and started working for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department. My new boss was all for it, and even gave me extra time off so I could do the coursework and study for the final exam."

"So why didn't you become one?"

"Because I found out my boss was planning to use that as an excuse to keep me from being a beat cop anymore," Rita said. "He didn't believe in women police officers doing the same kind of things that men did, and his boss had to order him to use me like I was trained, instead of as a glorified desk clerk, when I was first transferred to that particular station. That's why my being interested in paramedic training gave him just the excuse he thought he was going to have. Only ..." and with that she grinned devilishly, "... I failed the final exam."

"What?" Linda was surprised.

"That's right," Rita said with a straight face. "Seems that I didn't get much sleep the night before, and I was a good twenty-five points below the score I needed to pass. My boss was mad as hell, and somehow finagled a way to force me to take it a second time, but I failed that too by an even worse margin." Now she gave that sneaky grin again. "Seems I was stressed out by all the pressure he was putting me under."

Linda laughed softly. "He must have wanted you off the street really bad."

"He wanted me in his lap inside his office with the door closed," Rita confided. "That's what he really wanted. He never got it, though. Anyway, I decided to keep up the training on my own time, since I knew I could have qualified if I had wanted. It would make for a nice extra skill to have. Not my primary job, of course, but a backup skill that could come in handy if needed. So I did, and I've kept it up ever since, and here we are now."

"I'd say that those medical skills did you very well in this case, and in spades," Linda said admiringly. "You're about as good as some of the medical researchers I've worked with, both before and after I got hired by Umbrella. It was you who really saved Elza's life, not me. All I did was assist and provide the blood for the transfusion, and we got lucky there."

"I'll never turn down luck if it's going my way," Rita said, "and I for one was glad to have your help. I needed it with Elza. That's the worst physical trauma case I've ever had to deal with in my unofficial medical career." She sighed. "Still, she's stabilized, and it looks like the worst part is over. And she's taking it well, too – a lot better than most people would have in her case. Once she got over that 'leave me behind I'm useless' phase, she bucked right up and bounced back to pretty much her old self again."

"That's good," Linda said, then added, "Sounds like you two did some talking while I was gone."

Rita paused, looking at Elza. Linda wondered at this, but said nothing. Rita remained silent for several seconds before she spoke again. "Yes, she did, Linda. Well, truth be told, she did most of the talking. Practically wore herself out doing it, and that's why she's sleeping now. All I did was listen and offer the occasional comment – but I had already guessed a lot of it, and actually knew more around the edges than she thought I did, so she wound up not talking as much as she might have – and that was a good thing. She pretty much talked herself to sleep, poor girl."

Something about the way Rita spoke piqued Linda's curiosity. "May I ask what it was about?"

Rita nodded. "She said you'd want to know and that I should tell you if you asked. She said it was what drove the old you crazy, and maybe the old you would stay away for good once you knew."

"Knew what?"

"How she got that all-expenses-paid, full college scholarship from Umbrella."

Linda's surprise was clearly written on her face. After the shock had worn off, she spoke. "I wasn't even going to ask, given the way I had ucked-fup throwing that rumor in her face about her having sex with old man Spencer to get it." She shook her head. "You know, the old me was planning on making her spill the beans in exchange for some of my special knowledge about Umbrella that I knew we'd need in order to survive." She looked over at the bed where Elza still lay, her one uncovered eye closed in slumber and her chest moving up and down, with only a faint echo of its normal conscious shudder, then back at Rita. "Am I still curious? Hell, yes. The thing about rumors that are as bad as the ones that had been spread about her is this: there's always a grain of truth to spark such outlandish claims. Something unusual happened for someone like her to get that scholarship, and she even admitted as much – but she never would say what it was. Said it was too personal a matter."

"Well, it was," Rita said, then smiled at Linda's reaction. "Don't worry, Linda. She said it was all right to tell you now, since you're not behaving so badly anymore and that scholarship is just so much paper now, given the Outbreak and all." Rita took a long look at Linda before speaking again. "Elza was given that scholarship for keeping her mouth shut about something involving the Spencers, something so bad and shocking to old man Spencer that he was grateful for her silence, and decided to reward her for it. Turns out he's still got a sense of honor, even if he doesn't have a conscience anymore."

"What was it?"

Rita now assumed the manner and tone of a police officer giving an action report. "Elza was date-raped by Spencer's son Jack."

It grew very quiet in the Security Office after Rita dropped her bombshell. Linda found she couldn't speak – that she couldn't even find the words to say. This was the last thing she had expected to hear. Grain of truth, indeed – but in the exact opposite way! A horrible way, too, and Linda didn't even have to think hard about that. She felt a shudder run through her body as she continued trying to find the right words to say.

"Yeah, it shocked me, too," Rita said softly, as if reading Linda's mind, "even though I already knew part of the story, as it turned out – especially given the way she is and all. She's the kind of person who wouldn't normally allow herself to be maneuvered into something like that. However, young Jack Spencer had been doing this thing for quite a while, and was very good at it. He had a regular act going as the rich-boy-fish-out-of-water that he'd pull on the women he'd targeted, and almost all of them fell sorry for him and bought it – hook, line, and sinker. Just like Elza."

"So she wasn't the only one?" Linda finally managed to say.

"No, but she was the last one," Rita said grimly, "because he didn't count on her friend Claire Redfield. You see, she and Jack had hooked up at a mixer that was being held for the newly graduated seniors from Raccoon High and the local university social set. You know - so they could all mingle and get to know each other before the new school year started at Raccoon University? Anyway, they held it at The Grind, the most popular nightclub downtown – and that also happened to be one of Jack Spencer's favorite stalking grounds. That's where he picked up Elza, and he apparently drugged her drink while she was distracted with something else. He then led her onto the dance floor and used it as cover to spirit her out of there once she started getting woozy. It had been a double date with Claire and one of Jack's buddies, though, and Claire soon missed Elza. It was a good thing she did, too, because Jack's buddy tried to pull the same thing on her – only Claire's drink got spilled when somebody ran into him by accident and knocked it out of his hand. Anyway, once Claire got away from Jack's buddy she asked around and found some people who had seen Jack take Elza out of there, acting as if she were drunk or drugged, and that was when her own warning signals kicked in. She called us first - I remember that call, because I was assisting Aaron Bochner on the duty desk that night - but he told her that we couldn't do anything without any evidence of a crime, and he was right. So you know what young Miss Redfield did next?"

"No," Linda said, thoroughly intrigued by what Rita was sharing.

Rita grinned. "She called the Spencer Estate and demanded to know where Jack and Elza were. Elza said that Claire and that new Russian business manager of Mr. Spencer's - Sergei Vladimir's his name, as I recall - really got into it over the phone. Mr. Vladimir swore up and down that neither one of them were at the Estate and that Claire should just be a good little girl, go on home, and shut the hell up. 'She'll probably show up in the morning,' he said, and then he hung up on her. Well, you can imagine how hot Miss Redfield got then, and she tried to call back, but the Estate wouldn't answer. After that, she rounded up some of her friends and looked high and low for 'em, but never found 'em."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, early the next morning, Claire gets a phone call from the Raccoon Motel. You know – that fleabag on the road up to the Arklay Mountains?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Linda said as she nodded. "I spent my first night in Raccoon City there. That guy who runs the place is one rude sunnuvabitch, and I'd had gone elsewhere if hadn't been so tired that night."

"That's Mickey Sullivan for you," Rita said with a grin. "He's both the owner and the manager. He's a real piece of work. The RPD has had lots of fun with both him and his motel over the years. Anyway, the caller was Elza, and she had woke up in a room there without any clothes on and none to be seen anywhere. She realized what had happened once she came to, but that wasn't the worst of it." Rita paused for dramatic effect, then continued. "She also found a hundred-dollar bill on the nightstand and a hand-printed note from Jack that said, Thanks for a good time."

Linda's face contorted with rage. "Why that ... that ... that bastard!!!" she spit out, and she meant it.

Rita nodded, and now her face became tinged with sadness. "Claire had to go get Elza, and take her some clothes, so she'd have something to wear when they left. She used the money to pay for the room, and then told Mickey he could keep the change. She then drove Elza back to her house so she could freshen up before going home. Elza said once they got in Claire's bedroom, she just started bawling her heart out. Elza said she had never felt so humiliated and helpless in her whole life, and then just kept right on cryin'. Claire tried to comfort her as best she could, and she shooed her own mother away when she started getting nosy, until Elza was done crying." Rita paused to take a breath, then shook her head. "A very nasty business, done by a very nasty young man," she commented. "Anyway, she and Claire never told their parents what had really happened. They let 'em think that Elza had been out all night with some boy – and that was at least a shot at the truth - because Elza was afraid what Umbrella would do to her and her family if she tried to report the rape. Claire urged her to do it anyway, saying that the seriousness of the crime would override that, but Elza still wouldn't do it. She was scared of what might happen if she started running around claiming that old man Spencer's son had raped her." Rita then smiled. "But that wasn't the end of it, you know."

"Go on," Linda said. By now she was hanging on every word that Rita spoke.

Rita nodded, and then continued. "Well, a few days later Elza gets a package from the Raccoon Motel. Inside are her clothes from that night, a check for a hundred dollars, and a letter from Mickey Sullivan himself." The tone of Rita's voice now became suffused with a fair dose of genuine amazement. "In the letter, he said he found Elza's clothes in one of the dryers and had figured out what had happened. He also said that the reason why they were there was that Jack had been washing them - you can guess why - and that Mr. Vladimir had showed up and literally hauled his ass out of there by the scruff of the neck. He apparently didn't tell Mr. Vladimir that Elza was still in their room, and that's how Elza got left high and dry like she did. Mr. Sullivan apologized for what had happened, and was returning her clothes to prove that he meant it. He also refunded her the cost of the room because he didn't feel right taking the money, given what had happened in there. He said he wouldn't testify in court - he never does, that jerk - but he'd be happy to help her clear up the matter in any other way he could, so long as it wasn't on the record." Rita stopped again to sigh, and when she resumed talking her tone was that of contemplation. "You know, Mickey's got a daughter named Ginger who's about my age. She manages his apartments for him downtown, and she's got a little girl named Kayla who doesn't have a daddy. He got Ginger pregnant and then ran out on her. I guess Mr. Sullivan could relate to what happened to Elza. That's the only time I've ever heard of him even coming close to actually helping out somebody who got in trouble at his place."

Linda nodded. "So this creepy motel manager actually tried to make good on what had happened to Elza because of what happened to his own daughter?"

Rita nodded. "That's what I figure." She then laughed quietly. "But you know what? That's still not the end of it."

"Oh?" Linda said, raising an eyebrow.

"No," Rita replied. "Because it wasn't long after that happened that she got the scholarship offer from Umbrella – and that's when she got to meet old man Spencer himself, and finally get justice for what his boy had done to her."

* * * * *

The long, black limousine pulled up in front of the mansion and stopped. The left door opened, and a bear of a man with silver-grey hair and the type of suit normally associated with a bodyguard stepped out. He quickly walked around to the right-side back door and opened it. He stood beside the door as Elza Walker, wearing a nice outfit and matching heels and with her hair formally arranged, got out and stood beside him. The silver haired man nodded at her, then closed the door and nodded at the unseen driver. The limo slowly pulled away from them, and followed the curve of the drive as it arced around the long front lawn and headed back the way it came. The silver haired man bowed slightly, motioning with one hand towards the front doors of the mansion as he did. "This way, Miss Walker," he said, with a Russian accent so thick that you could almost cut it with a knife. Elza complied, and both front doors swung open as they approached. The two servants who had opened the door and a short man dressed in the clothes of an English-style butler were inside, waiting to receive the mansion's new guests.

Elza had been apprehensive about going by herself to the Spencer Mansion. So too had been her parents at first. After all, not just anybody was allowed to see Ozwell E. Spencer. It was rumored that he was very ill, and that he had become an almost total recluse because of that. Doctors of all kinds visited the Spencer Mansion and its adjoining properties on a regular basis, and not all of them were in his regular employ. Stories abounded about the place, as well as the many people who moved in and out of there, both young and old. That is why the announcement of the visit by the silver haired man to the Walker farm, the day before she was supposed to have her personal visit with Mr. Spencer, had badly shaken both her and her parents. The man had Umbrella Security Service written all over him despite his nondescript business suit, as did the other two men who had remained outside and stood guard by his car the entire time. However, the man had reassured them that his was a friendly visit, and did so in a surprisingly polite Old World manner despite his thick Russian accent. He had introduced himself as Sergei Vladimir, Mr. Spencer's recently hired personal assistant and business manager, and that he was there both to help Elza get ready for her interview the following day and to answer any questions that either she or her parents might have about the scholarship offer. He had then spent the next half-hour or so answering all of the questions that her parents had asked, all the while laying on the charm like a seasoned diplomat despite the limitations of his accent. Elza herself had soon become so impressed with Mr. Vladimir that after her last question she had asked him about his background. "Tell me, Mr. Vladimir," she had said, "that is, if you're willing and it isn't too personal. What's a man like you doing working for Mr. Spencer? I don't mean any offense, but you look like you walked straight out of an old war movie about Stalingrad."

"Elza Walker!" her mother had exclaimed. "Mind your manners!" Her father rolled his eyes, while her mother addressed their guest. "You'll have to forgive Elza," she had said. "She tends to be a bit forward, tells things like it is, and so on. I think she gets it from her father," and at that she shot her husband an accusing but friendly look.

"Is all right," Sergei had said, laughing as he did so. "Both my grandfather and father fought the Germans, and I too would have had I been there. As for me, I serve in Soviet Army many years before Wall fell. I fought in Afghanistan and many other places. I have been soldier most of my life. Even so," and at this he gave a sad smile, "I was raised in old ways of my people. My family were once nobles, back in the days of the Tsar. We remember the old ways, and we have not forgotten them. Besides," and at this his sad smile turned into one of bemusement, "retirement pay in Red Army not so good. I do better in West, now that I work for Umbrella. Is big change for me, but more to my liking."

After that, Sergei had entertained them for another good half-hour talking about life in modern post-Communist Russia, before announcing and apologizing at the same time that he had to leave. Before he left, however, he had one final thing to say. "You may come with daughter if you wish, Mr. and Mrs. Walker," he said, "but interview is for daughter alone. You may wait in next room until interview is concluded. That is the way Mr. Spencer has always done this, as he only awards those whom he thinks can stand on own two feet."

Danial Walker looked at his wife Maureen, then at his daughter Elza, then back at Sergei. "We Americans also believe in a person being able to stand on their own two feet, be they man or woman. We won't tag along on what is supposed to be an occasion for Elza alone – but I thank you for your kind offer, Mr. Vladimir."

"Both Mr. Spencer and I thank you in turn," Sergei said, and then made his farewells.

It was as both Sergei and the butler escorted her through the vast halls of the Spencer Mansion that Elza reflected on the just-completed trip she had made – from her home on the Walker farm on the far outskirts of Raccoon City all the way to the large and impressive Spencer Estate up in the Arklay Mountains, in whose long arms Raccoon City itself was nestled. The trip had taken quite a while, and neither Elza nor Sergei had spoken until they cleared the outermost gate of the estate. Suddenly Sergei bestirred himself, and spoke. "Miss Walker?"

"Yes, Mr. Vladimir?"

Sergei had made it clear the day before that he didn't like to be addressed as "sir," even though he was both a former Soviet officer and descended from ancient Russian nobility. "I am not in Army anymore," he had said the first time Elza had tried to be polite with him. "I work for living, earn my keep like everyone else. You may call me Mr. Vladimir, if you like." He was now looking at her, and his demeanor had suddenly taken on a formal affair. His English had suddenly smoothed out, too, although it was still thickly accented. "Miss Walker," he said, "I am aware of the real reason behind your visit with Mr. Spencer today. It would be dishonest of me to pretend otherwise, and I wanted you to know that."

"I see," Elza said. Her face too had become set and her jaw firm, and she did not waver as she returned his gaze.

"There is something you should know," Sergei said, choosing his words carefully. "This is first time something like this has happened since I have known Mr. Spencer. He is not behaving like himself. He is normally ruthless, cold, unfeeling. Is most unusual of him – but then circumstances are most unusual, too."

Elza nodded, but didn't say anything.

"A word of advice if I may, Miss Walker," Sergei continued. "Be honest. Do not lie. Do not attempt to obfuscate facts, or cover truth with pleasantries. What happened, happened. Be forward with Mr. Spencer. That is what he will appreciate most."

Elza remained silent for a bit, then slowly nodded. "I intend to, Mr. Vladimir."

Sergei smiled. It seemed impossible for a face so angled and rough to smile, but it somehow managed. "That is good, Miss Walker. I hope interview goes well."

The trio stopped at the end of a long and thickly carpeted hallway before an ornate wooden door. The butler walked up to the door and knocked. "Mr. Spencer?" he called. "Sergei is here with your guest."

"Show them in!" came the voice from beyond the door.

Elza was shown into a room that reminded her strongly of a Victorian or Edwardian era study or drawing room. It had rich carpets and decorated matching wallpaper, with period proper antique furniture and large bookcases to match. Some of these were arranged in such a way as to block off the opposite back corner of the room, and Elza strongly suspected that there was another door back there. Sitting on one of the antique chairs was a balding old man wearing a polo shirt and slacks. He had been tall and well built at one point, with strong facial features and tanned skin, but both age and disease had ravaged him. The shell that remained was emaciated, the face was shrunken, and the skin was splotchy and with the veins quite prominent near the surface wherever it was exposed, such as the man's wasted arms. He also had an oxygen tube attached to his nose, that circled around behind him and down to a portable respirator sitting beside his chair. Both a walker and a wheelchair were within easy reaching distance, provided a few steps were taken, and a tall Oriental man with an expressionless face whose eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses stood behind and to the right of the old man's chair. A combination bodyguard and male nurse, Elza immediately thought.

The man might be old and suffering from various ailments; however, his voice was as firm and hearty as when Elza had first heard it out in the hall. "Thank you, Sergei. Both you and Kato can wait in the hall. I need to speak to our guest in private."

"Yes, Mr. Spencer," Sergei said as he made a formal short bow. Kato - as that was the Oriental man's name, it seemed - moved out from behind the chair and joined Sergei. The two men walked out of the room through the door that Elza and Sergei had come in by, pulling it shut behind them. The door closed, and now Elza was alone with Ozwell E. Spencer – one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.

Spencer smiled at her, then motioned to the chair that was set at an angle to his own. "Please, Miss Walker – sit. I would stand and greet you properly, like a gentleman should do for a young lady, but I'm afraid my, uhmmm, condition prevents me from doing so."

Elza nodded in acknowledgement. She slowly walked up, and then carefully sat in the chair beside Spencer. Her pose was rigid and formal, and she tried to keep her face a mask of formality as well.

Spencer looked at her. There was a twinkle in his eye – the appreciative gleam of a much younger man trapped in an old and wasted body. "I'm glad you came today, Miss Walker. I feared you might turn down my scholarship offer."

Elza's voice was as firm as her pose. "Elza, please. Miss Walker is my mother."

Spencer looked at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. "You're quite the forward one, aren't you? I like that. You're direct as an arrow, and that's good. Very good indeed. But in this case you are wrong, Miss Walker. Did they not teach you proper etiquette in school? Miss is the proper form of address for a single young adult lady such as yourself. Were I to be talking to your mother, and were we not on a first name basis, and we are not, the proper term of address would be Mrs. Walker." He smiled at the visibly reddening Elza. "But I shall honor your wish, Elza, and address you by your first name. And for that, you may address me as Ozwell, if it will make you feel better." His voice lowered to a conspiratorial tone. "Frankly, I've heard that my nickname among some of the hired help here at the mansion is The Great Oz, but I've made a point of pretending not to notice. Some impertinence must be overlooked at times, in order that things get done."

Elza herself now smiled, and visibly relaxed. The old man had tried to crack a joke in order to ease the tension, and make her feel better. It wasn't a very good one, but the thought alone counted.

Spencer apparently noticed. "Ahhh, that's better," he said, and smiled back. "I'm glad you've decided to take up my scholarship offer – and it is a rare thing when such is offered to someone of your ... well ... diverse talents. That makes up for a lot, in particular your grades."

Elza frowned at the mention of her grades, and she saw Spencer's eyes twinkle again, but she made no response. Spencer continued.

"I see from your background data that you ride and race motorcycles, Elza, as well as work on them. Interesting .... Did you know I used to race cars once?"

It was obvious that Spencer was expecting a reply. "No, sir." she said.

"Yes ..." he went on, "a long, long time ago. Back when motorcycles were still little more than curiosities, you understand. But I understand you work on vehicles, too, and I think you would have been right at home on the race tracks of my youth. Our racers may not have been as fancy or as fast, but they were still a thrill ... and dangerous, if not handled or maintained right."

Elza was afraid that Spencer was beginning to wander, and decided to bring the conversation back on subject. "Mr. Spencer," she said, "I came here today because of the appointment that was made for me for the personal interview that is one of the requirements for your very generous scholarship offer. Even so, sir, both of us know this is not the real reason why I am here. So, shall we continue with the usual informalities, or shall we cut to the chase?"

Spencer said nothing for a while, regarding her. Elza returned his gaze unflinchingly. After a while, he spoke. "You don't waste time – do you, Elza?"

"No, sir."

The old man broke eye contact, shaking his head. "My investigators warned me you would be like this. So strong-willed and direct for one so young. It must be your father's blood in you." He took a long breath, and then looked at her again. "I wish my boy had understood that. If he had, then none of this would have happened. It's my fault, you know."

"Sir?" Elza was puzzled.

"My fault," Spencer said, "for not being a proper father. His mother died of complications shortly after he was born, and I had my businesses to run, so Jack grew up without a proper pair of parents. Tutors can only do so much, you know. I did what I thought was best, but it apparently wasn't good enough." Suddenly he pounded on one of his chair arms with his fist. "I should have paid attention to Jack! I should have raised him to be a proper Spencer! But I didn't, and now I've wound up with a pervert who's hardly any better than that freak of a boy of Alexander's! Oh, why couldn't he have turned out like the Wesker twins? Why did I set myself up for this?"

Spencer stopped speaking, and looked down at the floor. Elza remained silent, watching and listening, and trying to make some sense of what he was saying in the privacy of her own mind. The parts of it that affected her she understood well enough; it was the references to the others that threw her. Who was Alexander, and who were the Wesker twins? What did they have to do with Jack, and what he had done to her?

After a while, Spencer looked back up at her. "Forgive me, Elza," he said. "I'm now an old man ... and a sick one at that. Sometimes the mind tends to wander." He drew himself up as best he could in his seated position, then went on. "Elza, have you ever read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck?"

"Yes, sir," Elza answered. "I had to read The Good Earth for a book report back in junior high school."

"Aaaaaahhhhhh," Spencer said. "So they still teach Pearl Buck in junior high school these days. Well, some of them, anyway." He licked his lips to remoisten them. "Then you understand from where I am coming on this."

"I think so, sir," Elza said. "The children of wealthy parents, born into gain, never having to earn their way into wealth, and then wasting their lives in degeneracy and debauchery, rarely if ever appreciating how hard their parents have worked for them unless unfortunate circumstances force them otherwise. Is that it?"

"More strongly put than I would have said it, but yes," Spencer agreed. He again stopped speaking and studied her for a while, before resuming again. "I'm informed that your friend Claire Redfield urged you to press charges, but that you refused."

"Yes, sir."

"May I ask why?"

"Because it would have done no good," Elza said. She was looking Spencer squarely in the eye, and her gaze never wavered. "You own Raccoon City, sir – lock, stock, and barrel. Almost all of the people in power and authority are there because you wanted them there, and they answer to your beck and call. What would have happened if I had come along and said, 'Mr. Spencer's son raped me?' It wouldn't have mattered what proof I could have brought. The whole thing would have been swept under the rug ... and ... " and with that she swallowed hard before she continued, "... and possibly me and my family, too. That's why, sir. There was no point. The best thing to do was to stay silent – and that's what I chose to do."

Spencer regarded her evenly for a long time, as it seemed. The silence in the air was so palpable that it was almost visible. Finally, he nodded. "Yes, girl – I mean, Elza. You're right. The whole thing would have been swept under the rug, as you say – and some of my subordinates have been known to get overenthusiastic in carrying out their duties." He sat back in his chair, rubbed the bridge of his nose, then lowered his hand and continued. "It has been a very long time since a Spencer went to jail for anything. A very long time indeed." He sighed. "Our family is not of the blood royal, Elza, but nonetheless we are Spencers. We are descended from those who for a time ruled the greatest empire in the world. We have achieved many things and done many deeds both good and bad. But the one thing that a Spencer is never supposed to do, if he is a true Spencer, is defile the family name by taking advantage of or brutalizing a lady ... and my son did both to you.

"It is said that I have been ruthless in business for so long, Elza, that I no longer have a conscience. Perhaps that is true. What is certain, though, is I have never lost my sense of honor, nor the pride that comes with my family name and all that entails. When my son did what he did to you, and to all of those other women, well ... he shit all over the family name. That is something I cannot allow. Do you understand?"

Elza slowly nodded. "I think so, sir."

Spencer nodded in reply. "Good. You are as intelligent as you are beautiful, young lady. That is part of the reason why I am offering you that scholarship. Intelligence and common sense such as yours deserves to be rewarded. There is also the debt of honor that I owe you for the sake of the family name ... and one more reason."

When Spencer did not continue, Elza ventured the nerve to ask. "What reason is that, sir?"

The old man smiled grimly. "I don't believe in hush money, Elza. I've never paid it, and I never will. But these are unusual circumstances, and your unusual situation calls for an unusual solution. My offer of a scholarship is half of that solution."

"What's the other half, sir?"

"The chance for you to serve justice against my son." With that Spencer clapped his hands, and called past Elza to the door. "Sergei! Kato!"

The two men hurried back into the room and stood before Spencer. "We are ready, sir," Sergei said, nodding his head in a sort of impromptu bow.

Spencer's voice was as cold as ice. "Have Boris and Dimitri bring Jack in here."

"At once, sir," Sergei said, as he lifted his head and then immediately left the room.

Kato now reappeared behind Spencer's chair, as implacable and inscrutable as ever. Spencer laughed. "Ah, those Russians. Loyal as all out. Fanatical Communists, every one of them, and still desperate for someone to lead them and give them work like they had back in the 'good old days.' Did you know I got two battalions of them for a song after the Wall fell, Elza? Enough to staff my own private army. They're excellent fighters, every one of them, and loyal to the core too. Except Nikolai, of course – Colonel Vladimir's former aide. He will bear watching. But as long as he is useful, I shall continue to use him. Ah, here they come with my boy. Now the real fun begins."

They could hear the sound of Jack Spencer's loud protests long before the young man was literally man-handled into the room by two burly Russians in military fatigues. They half-dragged and half-stiff-armed him in front of Spencer and Elza's chairs and stopped, holding him firmly with arms apart. Jack's trademark mauve jacket was rumpled and askew, his red hair was mussed, and he was obviously very angry. "What the hell is the matter with you people?!" he screamed, as he was literally planted into position by his unsympathetic escorts. "I am Jack Spencer! You do not treat a Spencer like street trash!! When my father hears about this—"

"Shut up, boy," Spencer said evenly. "Who do you think had them fetch you?"

Jack's head snapped around. His jaw dropped, and his eyes almost bulged out of his sockets. "Father!" he exclaimed incredulously. "But you're supposed to be in—" and then he noticed who was sitting beside him. If his eyes could have opened any wider and his jaw dropped any farther, it would have. "Y-y-y-y-you!" he finally stammered.

"Yes, boy," Spencer growled. "She's the reason I'm back from overseas. Or more precisely, what you did to her – and to all those other young girls, too."

All of the bluster and bravado had melted out of Jack Spencer at the sight of Elza sitting beside his father. He now looked like a frightened animal cornered by its hunters, unable to fight or fly, knowing the death blow was about to fall but not knowing how or exactly when. "Please ..." he finally said. "Father, please! Why are you—?"

"Why?!" Spencer roared. With an effort he came to his feet. Kato stepped around from behind the chair and held out his arms to steady him, but Spencer waved him off. "Because you are a disgrace, boy! Because you have defiled the family name and honor by raping this young woman! Not to mention those others to whom you did the same! And you did it using my company's drugs to enable you! What else do you thing brought me back from Europe, BOY?!?!" Spencer stopped and took in a deep breath. Elza remained still, watching the exchange, saying nothing. Jack Spencer's open jaw quivered, and his guilt was plain to see. The elder Spencer continued, rather loudly, although he was no longer yelling. "Do you know what kind of legal shitstorm you have just buried me in, boy?! Do you even have a fucking clue just how long and how much money it's going to take for me to iron out this mess?! I ought to let them haul your sorry ass off to jail, as you deserve, but even those worthless convicts have codes of honor regarding your kind of pervert! And if it weren't for that, fresh meat like you would be lucky to last a month in the state pen! But fortunately for you ... boy ... you are a Spencer, and Spencers do not go to jail." Spencer's voice began to lower with those last two sentences, and by the last it had dropped to a normal conversational tone. "However, you are not about to get off scot free. Oh no, boy. Not by a long shot. There are prices to be paid for everything you do, and you are about to have to pay yours. Kato ... attend me."

The Oriental man helped Spencer ease himself back down in his chair. As for Jack Spencer, he kept glancing back and forth between his father and Elza. He had been caught, his father knew, and his father was going to do something about it. That thought along was enough to frighten anyone, let alone Ozwell Spencer's own son. Elza continued to watch, saying nothing. She had no more clue of what was about to happen than did Jack, but apparently she was to play a part in whatever his father had in mind. She didn't know if she was going to be comfortable with that.

Once Spencer was back in his chair and comfortably positioned, he looked up at young Jack and smiled. It was a smile cold enough to freeze the marrow in one's bones. "Yes, boy, your bill for your actions past and present has come due – today, here and now. And I will see to it that it is paid to my satisfaction. Understand?"

"But— but—" Jack stammered.

Spencer now turned to Elza. "Elza, this is the second half of the solution to our mutual problem, regarding the terrible crime that my son committed against you. Here is my son. He has been immobilized and cannot hurt you anymore. Do what you will with him. You may do anything you like – hit him, slap him, claw him, rake his face with your nails, kick him in the jimmy, gouge out his eyes, pick up anything in this study and beat him with it, or simply order my men to beat him for you. They will not kill him, of course, nor will you – but once this is done you will have the satisfaction of seeing Jack suffer for his crime, and by your own hand – the hand of the victim on whom it was perpetrated. It is, after all, the honorable thing to do. It is your one best chance for justice, Elza. Are you willing to take it?"

Jack's expression had been growing in its horror even as Spencer spoke. As soon as the old man finished, he cried out. "NO!!! No, Father! This isn't fair!! You cant'! I didn't—"

"Fair?!" the old man roared again, interrupting Jack's ranting. "Was it fair when you doped young Elza's drink at that club with the somatol that my company makes, then took her to that motel and had your way with her? Was it fair that you took her clothes, and then tried to wash away the evidence of your crime? Sergei didn't know about that when he came down there and hauled your sorry ass out of there! That left poor young Elza here in a fine pickle indeed, and only added to her shame and humiliation! And when Sergei called me, and I had to come back to sort this mess out, we found out it was a fine mess indeed! No, boy, there's nothing fair about it, because nothing you did to Elza or all those other girls was fair in any way! As the old saying goes, what goes around, comes around!"

The study fell quiet again. Jack looked wildly about, straining at the firm grip of his keepers, but to no avail. After a few moments, Spencer leaned over towards Elza and looked at her. "You only get one shot at this," he said. "Make it a good one."

Elza stood up. She paced forward until she stood within arm's reach of the immobilized Jack Spencer and then stopped directly in front of him. Her face was set, and her expression was as cold as midnight in the Arctic Circle. Jack looked into those cold eyes, saw that cold face, with the lips set so firmly, and shivered. "Please," he whimpered. "Please, Elza. Don't do this. Have mercy. Please."

"Did you show me any mercy?" Elza said quietly. "Did you give me any choice? I would have slept with you, Jack, of my own free will. I wanted to. I was perfectly willing to do so. I even tried to let you know that I would. Any normal man would have picked up on those signs, and the hints I kept dropping, and then the two of us would have been hitting the sack forthwith. But no! You had to do it your way, to force the issue whether I liked it or not, whether I wanted to or not - which I did, but that's beside the point now. You were going to do me anyway, whether I wanted you to or not, and you were going to do me your way whether I liked it or not. That's the real crime, Jack. You took away from me my freedom of choice. And we're now both here before your father because of what you did. So tell me, Jack – what should I do to you for raping me?" With that she turned, and put her back to him.

Jack smiled weakly. "Nothing? Just let me go?" When Elza did not answer or turn around, he continued. "I mean, after all, like you said, I was stupid. I should have seen that you wanted me. Silly me." He laughed – the shrill, half-hysterical laugh of a man with his back to the wall, who had nothing to lose and was willing to try one last roll of the dice. "If I had known, then none of this would have happened. We could have just fucked and been done with it. And maybe, if I had asked, you might have indulged me in other pleasures, too. After all, how did I know what you liked and didn't like? I never asked! And if I had but asked, then it wouldn't have been all so one-way, you know. Even kinkiness is a two-way street, you know. And if I had asked—"

Without warning, Elza abruptly spun around and punched Jack Spencer solidly in the gut.

Elza was a young woman. She did not come anywhere close to having the upper body strength of the two muscular Russians who were holding Jack in place. But she was an athlete, and her muscles were both firm and responsive – not firm enough to take away from her natural feminine beauty, but firm enough all the same. There was in addition her own rage at what had happened to her, and how it had happened, and her anger at the implications of Jack's current ranting. She took all of that anger and rage, channeled it and shaped it, and used it to drive her fist as hard as she could into the young man before her. It was a punch strong enough that even Jack's Russian keepers were caught off-guard by both its strength and speed, and they could not help but let the young man sag in their grip because of it.

Jack doubled over as Elza's fist drove into him. Everything loose that was in his mouth came out and sailed past Elza's right ear, accompanied by a loud and painful groan. His tongue tried to follow suit, but it was held in place by its roots at its most extreme limit. Jack's eyes all but popped out of their sockets with the force of that blow. He hung there doubled-over for a second or two, then sank to his knees even as Elza withdrew her fist and stepped back. He began to gag and cough – the hacking cough of a person desperately trying to catch their breath due to some extreme condition. His head hung down, his mouth was wide open, his eyes were now firmly shut, and had the Russians not still been gripping his arms then he would have collapsed to the floor. Jack coughed and hacked and heaved from the blow, and blood began to spot the carpet below his open mouth.

Elza turned away from the young man coughing up blood and walked over to Ozwell Spencer. "I think you'd better call your doctor," she said. "I believe I've ruptured his spleen."

Spencer looked up at her, with open admiration in his eye. "I'll do that. Thank you, Elza. You may go now. Sergei?"

Sergei stepped forward from where he had been standing by the door. He bowed slightly to Elza and waved toward the door with one hand. "Miss Walker?"

Elza walked to Sergei and the door to the study. Before she passed through, however, Spencer called out to her. "Elza? Before you go ...."

Elza turned and looked back at him. "Yes, Mr. Spencer?"

Spencer looked at his son. Both of the Russians had by now let him go and the young man was curled up on the carpet, both arms wrapped around his stomach, wheezing and hacking and still coughing up blood. He looked back at Elza and smiled. "Good job, Elza. Well done."

Elza nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Spencer." She looked up at Sergei and nodded again, and then the two of them left the study.

* * * * *

"I must admit to admiring your choice in handling that situation," Sergei observed, as the limousine pulled away from the Spencer Mansion and headed down the driveway on its long trip back to the Spencer farm. "My complements, Miss Walker, on the way you dealt with young Mr. Spencer."

"Thank you, Mr. Vladimir," Elza said, as she sat watching the scenery pass beyond the window.

"I think it is fair to say that the scholarship is yours and well earned. And if I may add a personal note, Miss Walker?"

Elza turned to look at him. "Yes, Mr. Vladimir?"

"Although the scholarship does not require employment with Umbrella after graduation," Sergei said, "I hope you will seriously consider it. Umbrella is always looking to recruit any individual who can offer unique skills, backgrounds, experiences. Yours is a truly unique set of skills and talents, and I do not think it would be difficult to find a place for you despite the lack of more formal education than most." His voice took on a bit of a fervent tone as he continued. "Indeed, Miss Walker, there are branches of Umbrella - especially among the newer ones - where a skill set such as yours would not only be appreciated, but highly valued and even augmented considerably. We are always in need of unique individuals such as you – and, once your education is complete, and should you decide to join us then, or even now, well ... I hope you will remember what I have said."

Elza regarded the man seated beside her in the limo who named himself Sergei Vladimir. He was far more complex and intelligent than he appeared on the surface – and if her ears and instinct were not deceiving her, then she had just heard him make what amounted to a recruitment offer. It was a golden opportunity, probably as big as the scholarship itself, and yet ....

"Thank you, Mr. Vladimir, but this is all still too fresh. And I would like to get my degree before I make any major commitments. A lot can happen in four years. A lot can happen in just one year. I appreciate the offer, Mr. Vladimir, but not now. Now is not the right time."

Sergei nodded and sighed. "I understand. Well then, to the future, and what it holds."

Elza smiled and nodded. "To the future," she said ... and the long black limo continued on its way.

* * * * *

Linda sat back in her chair, slowly shaking her head, once Rita had finished talking, still amazed by all that she had just heard. Finally, she spoke. "I never knew," she said softly, as if to herself. "I never had a clue. Had I know, well ... I might have acted differently." She looked over at the bed and at Elza, then back at Rita. "I knew Mr. Spencer had a son, but nobody ever talked about him. Now I understand why."

"Oh, he was a real piece of work, that one." Rita said. "I met him once, on police business, a while back – when we had to pay an official visit up to the mansion on some small matter. He was so nice, so charming, and such a gentleman. Looking back, now that I know what Elza and those other girls went through, I can see it was all a front – but he had that act down cold, Linda. He fooled me. He fooled Elza. He fooled a lot of people. And all that time ...." She let her words drift off as she stared somewhere, recalling her own memories of the recent past. Suddenly she smiled. "Say, do you want to hear something funny? Well, ironic, anyway."

"Does it have to do with this business?" Linda asked.

"In a way," Rita said, still smiling. "In fact, it makes the perfect coda, or epilogue, or whatever you will. Elza said that Mr. Spencer had pretty much confined Jack to the Estate grounds until he could get all that mess cleared up with everyone involved. Jack was still at the mansion when they had that first outbreak of the T-virus up there, and that's how he died. He got infected and became a zombie. Now this is the really interesting part. I went to visit Jill when she was in the hospital following the return of the STARS survivors from the mansion."

"Jill ...?" Linda asked, interrupting.

"Oh yeah, you don't know her," Rita said. "Jill Valentine. She was one of the original STARS members, and one of only two women on the team. She was a friend of Chris Redfield's from back in his military days, and that's how she wound up in Raccoon City. Anyway, she got injured by a thing called a Tyrant right at the end of that whole business, probably the same as you talked about earlier, and – hey, you all right?"

Linda had blanched at the mention of the word tyrant, but had quickly recovered. "Yes, I'm sorry," she said. "Remember, I know what a Tyrant is, and what it's capable of doing. Go on."

Rita nodded. "That's right – you do. Anyway, like I said, Jill wound up getting put in the hospital from her injuries when she was brought back with the other surviving STARS members, and I went and visited her there while she was recovering. You know what she told me?" With that she could no longer suppress her grin. "She told me that not long after they arrived they got separated, and she for her part wound up getting chased all over the better part of the mansion by a pretty frisky zombie in a mauve jacket – just like the ones Jack Spencer used to liked to wear."

"You're kidding!" Linda said in surprise. "I find that hard to believe!"

"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin!" Rita insisted. "It had been hanging around outside the room where Rebecca had holed up - she was the other female STARS member - but once it saw Jill out and around it quit doing that and started chasing her everywhere instead. And there at the end, when she finally did the thing in, it had laid in wait for her in a full bathtub in one of the bathrooms pretending like it had drowned, and sprang up at her out of the water!"

"What did she do?" Linda asked.

"Kicked it's freakin' head in," Rita said, then referenced the classic Frantics comedy routine. "Boot to the head! Schonk! And she said when she kicked its head in, its brain was so rotted and stank so bad that she wound up throwing up. Now's how's that for a fitting end to that pervert?!"

Both women broke out laughing. They stopped, however, once they realized that a third person was trying to join in. Elza's efforts to laugh quickly broke down into a wheezing cough, but the smile never left her face. The two women immediately rushed to her side. "Why you were eavesdropping, you little sneak," Rita said admiringly, then her voice became one of concern. "You just quit that laughing right now, you hear? You're not doing your lungs any good, bashing 'em up against those broken ribs like that."

"But its ... so funny ..." Elza gasped, "... and ... he ... deserved it. I ... didn't know ... that part ... of the story. Thanks, Rita ...." She finally settled down – but the smile never left her face.

* * * * *

It was over. At long last, it was really and truly over. Elza was glad she had finally confided in Rita, and was also glad that she had decided to let Linda know too – if only to clear up that particular mystery for poor Linda once and for all. As for herself, Elza now realized that if she had not opened up to Rita like she had, then she might not have ever learned that final part of the tale, and of the sad end of Jack Spencer. It had been a fitting end indeed, Elza thought to herself. Rita's revelation had enabled Elza to bring final closure to a very dark chapter in her young life – one that had begun one summer night not so long ago, before the Outbreak had come along and wiped the past clean with its own brand of horror. That particular nightmare from Elza's past was now dead and gone. All she had left to worry about was the present one.

\-------------------------

Chapter 23 - Redirect

It wasn't long before Kevin and John reappeared in the Pi Section Arrival Area, bringing a laden gurney with them. On it were all of the things they had rounded up during their little excursion to the lower levels and back again. Before he did anything else, however, Kevin pulled a large old-style magneto-optical (M-O) disc out of one of his pockets and handed it to Rita. "Better put this in that accordion folder along with that stuff from Chief Clemons," he advised.

"Why?" asked Rita, as she took the M-O disc and did as he asked.

"Because it's the next to last backup of the big computer server downstairs," Kevin answered, "the one that I'm guessing services this entire section of the Lab. I couldn't get the most recent one, because it was still in the machine and still backing up, but there was a shelf full of older backups in the Server Room. I took the most recent one I could find." He grinned. "I'm glad whoever was doing these wrote the dates on them."

Rita nodded. "Good thinking. There's probably all kinds of research records and stuff on here that anybody investigating Umbrella will find very interesting. How was it down there?"

"Bad, and it got worse the farther we went down," Kevin said. He was helping John get the supplies off of the gurney as he talked, wrapping them inside one of its included blankets for easier carrying. "Linda was right. There's no easy zombies and monsters anywhere in here, leastways of what we've seen so far. And while we haven't seen any more hunters or infected gorillas, we did run across something that's almost as bad."

"What was it?" Rita said, as she held the door open, while the two men lugged the blanket with their bundled supplies into the Security Office.

Kevin helped John set the bundled supplies down, and then looked at Rita. "It looked like something straight out of that remake of The Fly – except that this looked like a cross between a man and spider. Half hairy spider, like a tarantula or something. Well, you can guess how John reacted."

"Oh, yeah," Rita said, rolling her eyes.

"And the damn things were almost as strong as the hunter, too, although easier to kill. Once John figured out that a couple of good blasts from my SPAS-12 would kill them, he started going after them with a vengeance. I almost had to hold him back at times, so he wouldn't waste ammo trying to hunt them down." Kevin took in a deep breath. "Some of them may have followed us back up here, too. They seem to like crawling around in the air vents."

Rita suddenly looked up at the two air vents in the Security Office. They were much too small to let in anything as big as the creature Kevin was describing – but what if there were any little ones? She started to speak, but Linda beat her to the punch and spoke first. "Sounds like either a chimera or an arachnoid, Officer Ryman, and I'm guessing the latter from what you said."

"What's the difference?" Kevin asked.

"One's genetically engineered with the DNA of a fly, and the other with a spider," Linda stated. "Both have body hair and are like what you described."

Kevin thought for a moment. "Their heads looked more spider than fly."

Linda nodded. "They would be arachnoids, then. By the way, there's a connection between both of these creature types and the hunters that may help you understand the similarities."

Kevin nodded. "Go on. I'm all ears."

"They both came from the same Umbrella research project," Linda stated. "My former boss, Dr. William Birkin, was project director."

"Sherry's father," Kevin said.

Linda nodded. "Yes. Its goal was to create the ultimate bio-organic weapon, or B.O.W. for short, via forced mutation and genetic manipulation. Key to helping that process along was a stabilized strain of a mutagenic virus that was first discovered in Africa decades ago and further refined in Umbrella's own laboratories over the years. That's the T-virus. It was tried on several different selected animal species, as well as human test subjects – the latter not always willingly."

"How horrible," Rita observed. "I remember you mentioning that earlier."

Linda nodded. "Dr. Birkin's work with developing the hunters was the first time that the T-virus had been successfully used to create a stable, functional B.O.W. that was actually useful, insofar as the terms of the project were concerned. Further research developed several hunter variants, all of which were derived from lizard or amphibian life forms – Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Kappa, Delta, and so on. The arachnoids were a failed attempt to do the same thing using a genetically mutated combined human and spider base, and the chimeras were a somewhat more successful attempt on a fly base."

"And the zombies are what happens whenever the T-virus isn't applied properly, I guess," Kevin said disgustedly. "Sounds like your Dr. Frankenstein was in charge of a real chamber of horrors on Umbrella's part."

"It wasn't his chamber of horrors," Linda said rather fiercely. Rita raised an eyebrow but said nothing. "It was the higher-ups in charge that ordered all of that into being, and kept those projects going. To them he was just a tool, just like me, and just like everyone else on the staff – and even the B.O.W. test subjects, too, volunteer or not. A means to an end, and that end was going to be profit – selling the most unique kind of weaponry ever devised for the world's markets."

"Sounds more like a madman's dream to me," Kevin muttered, "and all of us know who the top madman is." He looked over at Elza, who was sleeping again. Beside her bed on the rolling cart sat the unobtrusive-looking manila accordion folder that Rita had placed there after adding the M-O disc to its contents. The late Chief Clemons had placed that manila folder in Elza's care back in what seemed like ages ago, and it had been Kevin who had retrieved it for her before they had evacuated the RPD. "And if we can ever get out of here," he added, "that old bastard is going down once and for all."

"Well, before you get all carried away with your plans, dear," Rita said, "I need to borrow John."

"Whatever for?" Kevin asked. "I was just about to search that area on the other side of that big-ass door out there, and it's been kinda nice having him handy."

"Listen to you," Rita said, smiling. "You weren't being so nice about him back when we first went into the Sewers."

"Yeah," Kevin said, smiling. "Well ... things have changed. Besides – why do you need him, anyway?"

"I need him to see how heavy I can load down that backpack with our spare ammo, and how much of it I'm going to have to dole out to everyone else."

"Ah kin kerry as much as ah needs ta," John insisted.

Rita looked at Kevin, and there was a bit of an exasperated tone in her voice when she spoke. "Kevin, you were in the service. Can you tell this knothead what it's going to be like trying to run around while constantly carrying up to, oh, how much brass and lead did you have to carry on your back then?"

Kevin laughed. "The lady's got a point, John. Humor her, okay? But you know what that means," he said, looking at Rita. "One of you's gotta come with me to give me some backup while I search, and it sure ain't gonna be Elza."

"I'll go," Linda promptly said. When everyone turned to look at her, she became flustered. "What?" she said. "Is there any reason I can't volunteer?"

"It's just nice to hear it, Linda," Rita responded. "You were kinda known for not doing that before."

"Oh, yeah," Linda said sheepishly, and then her voice firmed up. "As Officer Ryman just said, though, that was then and this is now. Rita, your medical skills are far better than mine, so it's best you stay here with Elza. Furthermore, Kevin may need my knowledge of all things Umbrella if he runs into something unusual out there. Yes, I'm a lousy shot, but I'm better than no shot at all. So ... will you have me?" She now looked at Kevin and waited.

Kevin thought about it for a few seconds, and then nodded his head. "Okay, Linda. Everyone else has soloed with me as a partner at least once already. I guess now it's your turn." He looked at John. "And don't you dare break down crying again when you're in here with Elza, or Rita and I both will skin you alive."

"Ise sorry," John said. "It wuz jes' seein' her lak dat, so ... so helpless, when she wuz so strong." He took a big swallow and set his shoulders. "I kin handle da site now, cuz ya know whut? I'm gonna make shur she gits outtah heah alive, even if I wind up da only one lef' ta do it. Right, boss?"

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Kevin said wryly, but he nodded in agreement. "Right. All right, Linda, you're with me. John, let Rita reset your mule rig. And when we're done folks ... I think it's about high time we moved out."

* * * * *

As Kevin had feared, the large loading door in the Arrival Area had required an Umbrella ID card to unlock. "That may be the last time we can use this," Linda advised, pocketing the card as she did so. "Using it once was bad enough, but they're certain to notice two such uses down here upstairs at Umbrella corporate."

"Well, we've been down here all day and they haven't shown up yet," Kevin said. "I'm not going to count on our luck holding out much longer, though. As soon as I can find the big ticket item I'm looking for, Linda, I'm planning on moving out. Just so you'll know what it is: there's bound to be a bunch of golf carts or four-wheeler transports or something around here they use to move around in those main access tunnels of yours. If we can get one of those, we'll be able to move Elza a lot faster than just by pushing her along. That's what I'm hoping to find somewhere on the other side of this door." He planted himself in a firing stance and raised Elza's autopistol. "All right," he said. "Open 'er up."

The massive loading door slid open with all the grace of a heavy bank vault being unsealed after long unuse. In addition to all the dust flying off the door edges, however, there were Crimson Zombies. A regular pack of them had gathered on the other side of the door once they had figured out that food was moving around on the other side. Kevin was ready for them, however, and began firing at once. Linda joined in the firing a couple of beats later, as soon as she got over her initial shock. "She's learning," Kevin thought to himself as the two of them finished off their foes. "Needs to improve her reaction time some more, though."

They were now standing in a large open area, the biggest room they had seen so far in the Underground Lab. It looked to be about as large as the warehouse containing the induction system, back up topside. To their left after a space - the space taken up by the Security Office - was a door that was marked RESTROOMS AND LOUNGE. To their right was a loading platform that ran the length of the room along its long side, broken up now and again by small flights of stairs and a couple of ramps that were evenly spaced down its full length. Along the other wall past the door were assorted cabinets, a desk and chair with assorted items, and so on. Three things in that large room immediately attracted Kevin's attention. Two he had expected to find since they were on the map, but the third was an unexpected bonus. The first was where the room's far left or northwest corner should have been. What was there instead was a large rectangular tunnel opening, just wide enough for two tractor-trailer rigs to drive side-by-side with about two foot of clearance from either wall and about five or six feet between them in the middle. It had a slight incline to its floor, and the tunnel beyond curved up and away out of sight. The second was the door in the left side wall beyond the first door and the assorted items up against the wall between them. The door had a welcome label on it: ARMORY. The third was parked in front of the far end of the loading platform to the right. It was a low-slung, single-operator cab, battery-operated transport truck similar to the kind one might see at an airport, or being used on an aircraft carrier. Best of all, it was hooked to a charger that was set into a cubbyhole on that end of the loading ramp, and the charger's lights were pulsing a steady green.

As Linda stayed behind to secure the big door and make sure it didn't close behind them, Kevin ran across the room to the transport truck. He eagerly opened the door and looked in the cab, then closed the door and went around to examine the charger. He was grinning like a madman as he called out to Linda across the room. "Good God Almighty, but are we in luck! The key's in it, and it's fully charged, too! I was afraid we'd have to go out to the main access tunnel to get one of these. How's that door comin'?"

"Just about got it," she said. "Tell you what. I'll check out the restrooms and lounge, and you check out the Armory."

"It's a deal!" Kevin responded with a grin, as both he and Linda finished with their current tasks and moved to investigate their respective rooms. There was a brief sound of gunfire from each - more so from Linda's end of what they now thought of as the Lab Storage Dock - and then each had cleared their respective areas. They were so used to Crimson Zombies by now, as it was the only form they were encountering anymore, that doing them in quickly came almost as second nature.

Kevin did not know how Linda was doing on her end aside from the sound of her shooting, separated as they were by a block wall or two, but he knew how he was doing – and it wasn't as well as he had hoped. The Armory had been pretty much cleaned out. He should have expected that, he knew, but all the same there should be something more left than the odd box or two of nine-millimeter pistol bullets, as well as enough loose single 12-gauge shotgun shells to almost fill a standard box. He began searching harder, trying every storage locker and cabinet he could get open, and his diligence was eventually rewarded. It wasn't much, compared to what he had hoped to find, but it was definitely a find all the same.

Kevin came out of the Armory about the same time that Linda came out of the other door. She looked a bit ragged and somewhat shaken, but that was all. She seemed to be bearing up a lot better than Kevin had expected, and she now looked over at him and grinned. "First time I've ever done anything like that by myself," she said, with a bit of pride. "You know, I might be able to get used to this someday."

"Let's hope it's not a permanent talent, for any of us," Kevin said, smiling back. "but that's good. You've come a long way from when Elza first found you, Linda. Now let me show you this neat little toy I found in the Armory." He held up a device that looked like a oversized gutted wristwatch.

"What is it?" Linda asked.

"It's a radio-operated, remote-control detonator that'll work with that block of C4 we found earlier," Kevin said. He held up another device in his hand, resembling a handlebar grip but with a thumb switch set in one end. "This is the switch for it. It's no good having an explosive unless you've got something to set it off with." He gave a disgusted frown. "I wish there had been some hand grenades in there, though, or even some more flash-bangs. I found some extra pistol and shotgun ammo, too, but not nearly enough."

Linda looked back at the transport truck at the other end of the room. "Well, you've got a plan, and we now have wheels. Looks like we're about ready to—"

Linda never got to finish what she was going to say, because just then Kevin's radio beeped. He quickly pocketed the detonator and switch, then pulled out his radio and keyed the mike. "Kevin here. What's up?"

"They're on to us, Kevin!!" Rita said urgently on the radio.

"Shit!" Kevin swore. "When?! How?!"

* * * * *

"Would you quit fiddling with that radio?" Rita asked, trying not to sound exasperated. "I'm having a hard time sizing these straps while you keep moving your arms, you know."

"Ise sorry, Miss Rita," John said. He had found his broken radio in the pile of things that Linda and Rita had planned to discard before the group left the Lab. He had promptly fished it back out and began playing with it again, still trying as before to get it to work. It was his constant movement that was exasperating Rita more than anything else, not his dedication to what she had long considered to be a hopeless cause. "Ah think ah almost got it," he insisted. "I kin heer sumfun on it now."

"What, static?" Rita exclaimed. "John, we were going to throw away that radio for a reason, and it's the same reason we tossed Elza's after the Sewers. It got wet, John. It's had water inside the case. Water's gotten on its circuit boards and shorted God knows what all out. It's useless, John. Give it up."

"Nah," John insisted, holding it up to his ear and fiddling with one of the knobs. "Ah kin hear sumfun now, ah swear! Listen!" And with that he turned up the knob.

What they heard next made the sweat pop out all over John, and made Rita's blood run cold.

... with extreme prejudice. Repeating. This is Umbrella Control to all USS, UBCS, and BOW handler field units. Targets have been identified and are five in number. Ryman, Kevin J., RPD SPF officer. Burnside, Rita E., RPD beat officer. Kendo, John A., common laborer. Walker, Elizabeth A., college student. Merton, Linda R., renegade Umbrella employee. Visual images and associated data have been downlinked to your supervisors. Targets are located in the northwest quadrant of the Factory Complex and are most likely somewhere near the Freight Arrival Area of the Pi Section of the Underground Lab complex directly below. The first intercept team will be in the area inside of twenty minutes, with others also enroute. All other Umbrella units in the area, including UBCS mercenary units, are hereby ordered to redirect to the Factory and co-oordinate your activities with the intercept units. Targets are in possession of confidential company data that must be retrieved or destroyed at all costs. All restrictions on weaponry and special units are lifted for this occasion. When found, you are to retrieve said data if at all possible by any means available and terminate your targets with extreme prejudice in any event. I say again, terminate with extreme prejudice. Control, out.

The radio squawked, then went silent. A sober-looking John turned off his radio and looked at everyone.

"Holy fuckin' shit!!!" Rita swore, grabbing at her own radio and keying the call button fiercely. "C'mon, Kevin – answer!!!"

As for John, he just continued to sit there, slowly shaking his head in amazement at what they had just heard. It was Elza, speaking from her sickbed, who uttered aloud what all of them were thinking. "Guys ... I think ... we just heard ... our ... death warrants."

Rita's radio now squwaked, and a familar-sounding voice spoke over it. "Kevin here. What's up?"

"They're on to us, Kevin!!" Rita said urgently on the radio.

"Shit!!" Kevin swore. "When?! How?!"

"We only found out just now!" Rita exclaimed. "John's radio started working again, only the damage it took made it come up on the frequency that Umbrella is using, or something! Hell, I don't know! But we all heard it, Kevin! They'll be here inside of twenty minutes, and they've got orders to kill us all!!!"

By that time Kevin and Linda had already ran back into the Arrival Area. They were just in time to see an arachnoid burst out from the floor grate on the room's other side across from the freight elevator. Its jubilation at being out in the open again lasted for only a split second, because that was all it took for Kevin to draw Elza's autopistol and open fire. The thing went down, less two spidery arms shot off and squealing like a stuck pig. Linda pumped a couple of rounds into it herself from her own pistol for good measure, and then the thing stopped moving.

The door to the Security Office flew open and Rita's head stuck out. "Kevin! Linda!" she called. "We need help getting Elza on the gurney!"

Kevin looked at Linda and he spoke firmly. "Go help them! I need to stay out here and guard our backs!"

"Why—?" Linda started to ask, but then she stopped. The blood drained from her face. "The intruder security protocols!" she exclaimed. "They've probably been taken down by remote!"

"Yeah, and that means more of our hairy friends from downstairs and all of our little pink friends from upstairs will probably be showing up any time," Kevin exclaimed. Behind him he heard Rita swearing again. "It never rains, but it pours," he continued. "Now go help them get Elza on the gurney, so we can get her on that transport truck and get outta here. Both our time and our luck's ran out."

Kevin was more right than he knew. Less than twenty minutes away from the Arrival Area, a quartet of transport trucks were racing up the main accessway towards the racetrack tunnel that linked the six separate sections of the Underground Lab complex. There was a fully armed and armored squad of black-clad U.S.S. paramilitaries on each, as well as two large hexagonal-shaped containers in the back of each truck – each container being about the size of a typical vending machine. What was inside those containers was meant for delivery to the fugitives in the Pi Section of the Lab, and it was not going to be a pleasant delivery. That was not all, though. High above in the freight elevator shaft but descending rapidly all the time, like a liquid being poured down the sides of a squared-off container, was the mother of all licker swarms. They rarely gave up on a prey, and they had simply waited and gathered their numbers until the air that burned suddenly went away and the strange but deadly cutting vines stopped flying out at them. As the way was now no longer blocked, they forged ahead with a single and solitary purpose: to get the prey that they had been denied earlier in the Factory. As for the Umbrella forces, they had been searching for the fugitives all day without any success. Once Umbrella's computer section had finally figured out what was going on deep in the Underground Lab, and had notified the appropriate people, Umbrella corporate had acted promptly. They in turn had dispatched the nearest Security Service units to the scene with all haste and with the appropriate orders. Two disparate forces were now coming at the Lab's Pi Section from two different directions. Both of them had the same deadly purpose in mind ... and the five remaining RPD survivors were now caught between the proverbial hammer and anvil.

* * * * *

 

Elza Walker was transferred from her bed in the Security Office to the gurney in record time, and with a minimum of discomfort. John had simply pulled the bed out from the wall a good bit, then with Rita and Linda helping him in the middle they had hoisted Elza up, out, and onto the gurney. They accomplished this by removing the fitted mattress sheet at the corners, and then picking up the injured young woman inside it as if she were in a hammock. Kevin was still outside to stand guard in case anyone or anything showed up, and they heard Elza's autopistol began to chatter even as they were moving Elza to the door. When they came outside with her on the gurney, they saw Kevin standing several feet away, his feet planted and the autopistol up and at the ready. The ooze-dripping remains of another arachnoid were scattered around the baseboard vent where the first arachnoid had tried and failed to get in. John grimaced at the remains, and his expression was one that Kevin and Rita remembered well from their time together with John in the Sewers. "God, but I hate spidahs," John muttered as he helped the others gently set Elza on the gurney.

The group took only enough time to dash back into the Security Office one last time in order to gather up and put on the assorted packs and bags each would carry. Kevin did not have a pack because he was still carrying more guns than anyone else, and also more ammo on his person than anyone else save John – who carried the RPD backpack with almost all of the spare ammo. What he couldn't manage comfortably had been split up among the two extra duffel bags and the rest of their gear that they were taking with them, and that both Rita and Linda carried. Everything else was left behind. Once that was done, and Elza had been strapped into her gurney, her four keepers raced around the large loading door with her, with John covering their rear. "Pull the door shut!" Kevin yelled as John cleared it.

"But we cain't lock it if Miss Linda's card doan work!" John protested.

"Then wedge it!" Kevin yelled back. "It's big and heavy, and that'll buy us some time! We gotta get Elza fixed on this truck before we can go! Hurry!"

John looked around, and then spotted several iron rebar rods in a pile up on the dock. He bounded up and grabbed two of them, then bounded back down to the door. He could now hear the licker horde coming, although he couldn't yet see them. They were close – damn close. With a grunt and a heave, he managed to slide the heavy loading door back into place all by himself. Once that was done, he ran around to the lower part of the track on which it ran and wedged one of the rebar rods in there as far as he could make it go. He then heaved and strained and bent the bar, so that it could not easily be pulled back out. He then went to the side of the door with the handle, and bent the second piece of rebar so that it could be hooked both through the handle and a metal protrusion that stuck out of the wall near the door handle. He worked the bent rebar rod into position and left it. As impromptu locks went both were damn ugly and clumsy, but both would ensure that anything on the other side of that door would not be able to force it open without considerable effort.

In the meantime, Kevin and the others had ran with Elza's gurney all the way across the Lab Storage Dock, as he now thought of it, to the waiting transport truck at the far end. It had once been a loading area of sorts, probably back when the Underground Lab was first built, but it had long since been converted from its original purpose. The room was now only being used to stage and store things for local Lab use, but traces of its prior purpose remained – such as the long loading dock. That probably explained why the transport truck had been left at the end of the dock. It also explained why in the assorted furniture and items in the room there were a number of both small and medium-sized E-track ratchet straps. There were a pair of E-tracks in the bed of that battery powered transport truck, and this suited Kevin's purpose just fine. Kevin reached over and picked out a number of the thinner ratchet straps, and then came back to the transport truck just as John was running back from the loading door.

"It's done, boss, but I doan' know how long it'll hold," John said. Kevin started to reply, but was interrupted by the sound of multiple somethings impacting on that door, accompanied by multiple instances of an all-too-familiar hiiiiissssssssss. The mighty door shook, but did not budge an inch.

"Good job," Kevin said. He held up a ratchet strap. "I take it you know how to use these?"

"Sure, boss," John grinned.

"Then help me lift this gurney onto the truck, and then help me strap it down," Kevin said quickly. "We gotta make sure Elza doesn't come off while we're movin."

"Better ... save some ... for me." Elza said with an effort. She was smiling, however, and there was a twinkle in her eye as she spoke.

"I didn't know you were into that sort of thing," Kevin quipped, winking at her. He looked at John, nodded, and both got ready to lift the gurney.

"Kevin Jackson Ryman!" Rita exclaimed, as she moved in on one side and Linda the other to help. "God, but you have a dirty mind!"

"A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste," Kevin said, flashing Rita his trademark wry smile. His face then went serious. "All together now on three. One, two, three!"

Everyone lifted the gurney at the same time. Within a few seconds they had it in the back of the transport truck and centered between the E-tracks. Kevin and John immediately went after it, ratchet straps flying, and in record time had the bottom of the gurney secured to the truck's E-tracks. The two men then hopped up onto the truck, and with some direction from Rita were able to lower the gurney down as far as it would go without jostling Elza too severely. As Kevin finished, he found himself up by Elza's head, and was now looking in her face. She seemed so calm despite the pain she was obviously feeling, he thought to himself, and admired both her stoicism and willpower. After that, more carefully than they had done with just the gurney, they added two more ratchet straps that passed over both the gurney and Elza, but only tightened them enough to where there was still a finger's worth of slack between Elza and the straps. These were meant to reinforce the gurney's own straps around Elza. With all of the straps around her now, Elza was definitely staying put on the gurney. She grinned deliciously at Kevin as he finished adjusting the last ratchet strap and making sure it wasn't too tight. "You're ... too good ... at this ... kind of thing," she teased.

"Quiet," Kevin loudly whispered. "You're going to get me in trouble again!" He looked over at Rita, who was now sitting on the truck and grinning at him.

"Kin youse drive, boss?" John asked from the other side of the truck. He looked at the small single-occupant cab, then back at Kevin. "I doan think I kin fit in dere."

"I'll drive," Kevin said quickly. He winked one more time at Elza, then looked again at Rita. "Time check?"

"About ten minutes," Rita said, checking her watch. Linda had just hopped on the truck beside Rita, while John sat himself down on the other side to balance the load. All three of them promptly put on the impromptu seat belts that Kevin and John had made from the extra ratchet straps.

"All right, then," Kevin said. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out Elza's SiG Sauer P228 pistol. He had picked it up back in the Security Office even as they were hurriedly getting ready to leave. He pressed the gun into Elza's right hand, and she gripped it tightly. He then took out the gun's spare ammo clip, which was full, and with a low-spoken "pardon me" slid it into the waistband of her scrubs about halfway, just behind and beneath her paralyzed right hip. "I don't think it'll be going anywhere now," he added, "and you need this where you can get to it."

Elza nodded and smiled. "Thanks. Now ... haul ass."

It took Kevin a few minutes to drive up the access tunnel at the top speed of the battery-powered transport truck before he reached the four-way racetrack tunnel intersection where the old surface access tunnel was located. Once he and his passengers had gotten there, however, they were forced to come to a dead halt. There was a heavy security door closing off the old surface tunnel, and it had a card reader lock on it. Kevin stopped the truck in front of the security door, then swung open the cab door and stuck his head out. "Time check, Rita!"

"About five minutes!" Rita said. "Whatever you're gonna do, you better hurry!"

In response, Kevin closed the cab door and quickly backed the transport truck down one of the racetrack tunnel's side branches. He then stopped the truck, hopped out of the cab, and ran back to where the surface tunnel security door was located. He appeared to have something in each hand as he ran. Before anyone could get off the truck to help with whatever he was doing, however, he ordered them to stay back. "Stay on the truck!" he bellowed as he ran. "This won't take long!" Within a minute he was back, running back to the truck at top speed. He hopped into the cab, then pressed the thumb switch on the remote control detonator he was holding. There was a tremendous explosion at the racetrack intersection, and pieces of reinforced steel shrapnel went flying in all directions. When the smoke finally cleared, the door had been blown open.

"Never thought I'd be using that C4 so soon!" Kevin said. "All right – hang on!" With that he tossed the now-useless detonator switch aside, slammed the cab door shut, and gunned the transport truck around and through the now-open entrance to the old surface access tunnel. It quickly disappeared from sight, following the road marked on the tunnel floor as it curved up and to the left, until it was lost in the darkness – and soon enough, even the sound of its motor faded away.

It was just a few short minutes after the last echoes of the transport truck had faded away when the sound of four transport trucks being driven at just as high a speed came from one end of the racetrack tunnel. Within a minute all four trucks had stopped in front of the blown-open surface tunnel and disgorged their passengers. Some of the Umbrella Security Service paramilitaries started to move up the surface tunnel, but one of their leaders ordered them back. "Get the fuck outta there!" he roared. "Let's let our little packages from Special Branch take care of this!" With that he laughed, and then held up what looked like a small control box with a keypad before pressing a red button on its side. Instantly doors popped open on all eight of the hexagonal containers in the back of the Security Service transport trucks, and eight pairs of intelligent animal eyes flared in the darkness where their host bodies were hunkered.

"Targets are in the surface tunnel," the Umbrella Security team leader spoke into his control box. "Acquire and destroy – NOW!"

With that, eight of Umbrella's top-of-the-line Delta hunters leapt from their transport containers into the surface tunnel, and immediately broke into a half-loping, half-bounding full-speed run up and after their designated prey.

The Umbrella Security team leader laughed. "I feel sorry for those poor bastards," he mocked, as he put the control box into a pocket on his vest. "All right," he said, now addressing his men. "Let's load up and—"

He never finished his last line. With an animal shriek of fury a licker came flying through the air and smacked into him, latching on with its clawed limbs and tearing at his throat with its massive teeth-filled maw even as the impact bowled the man over. The rest of the Factory horde was right behind it, surging up the tunnel from whence the survivors had come. Having been foiled by John's successful effort at jamming the loading door shut, they had simply found another way around it. Many of the Umbrella Security men screamed as they died, while others opened fire and tried to effect a fighting retreat. There were simply too many of the lickers, and not nearly enough USS men with machine guns firing to even come close to dealing with them. Soon enough, the echo of the last machine gun died ... and after that, only the lickers were left to fight over the remains.

* * * * *

The old surface access tunnel hadn't been used in quite a long time. That much was evident from all the dust the transport truck stirred up as it raced up in an ascending gentle spiral, always turning left, occasionally reaching a level platform whose next exit was always to the left, and Kevin found himself always looking to the left for anything ahead that might prove to be an impediment, an obstacle, or an enemy. Surprisingly, there were the occasional items off to the side or even in the middle of the tunnel that Kevin infrequently had to dodge. The transport truck would weave and everyone in the back would grab for the nearest handhold, despite the fact that everyone was either strapped in or down. Elza and her gurney would have never stayed in the back of the transport truck without the multiple rachet straps securing it there – given how fast Kevin was going, and how much she and the others in the back were rocked and jostled whenever he had to dodge the odd piece of fallen masonry or forgotten ruin of a crate in the road. Kevin now turned on the transport truck's front lights, because the lighting in the tunnel was erratic and they frequently had to pass through uncomfortably dark patches where it almost failed altogether. Without those lights, he could have plowed into anything in the road and not known it until right before it happened, and by then would have probably been too late. Kevin wondered to himself as he drove how long it had been since anyone had been in there to do any kind of maintenance.

For her part, in the back, Linda still wondered why Umbrella would have kept this old surface access tunnel open and accessible. Had it been part of the same plan that eventually included building those hundreds of new living quarters below, and in other places in Umbrella's underground domain? No. Those were brand new and clean, and not even furnished. This was old and downright filthy. Humans hadn't been inside this tunnel in years, perhaps even decades – yet something had been, and might still be here. That much she and everyone else could see from the tracks and paths that occasionally cut through the dust, running from one side alcove or grate to another. Linda thought of the rat-like things that Kevin's group had encountered during their time in the Sewers, and suddenly realized that whatever was making these tracks and paths was probably a lot bigger. That thought unsettled her, however, it did not unnerve her as it would have the old Linda. As Kevin had said, Linda Merton had come a long way in a rather short time. Besides, whatever the things were, they were doing like the rats in the river tunnel and keeping their distance. The previously unknown sound of the transport truck might have frightened all of them off, Linda thought, and nodded to herself.

Rita had been sitting with Linda and John in the back, lost in her own thoughts, until suddenly she raised her head and pricked her ears. The other two looked at her, then to where she was looking – behind them, and at the receding tunnel spiraling down and away from them. Her brow furrowed as she continued to stare intently at the pool of darkness to their rear.

"You ... hear it ... too?" Elza rasped.

The others looked at Elza. Her head was up, and she had moved her gun hand so that it and the pistol it gripped were just barely resting inside the strap across her waist. She too had an intent look on her face.

"How many do you think?" Rita asked.

"Hard ... to tell ... with only ... my right ear," Elza got out. "I'd say ... at least ... half-a-dozen."

"That and probably more, but I don't have your ears," Rita said, now drawing the Glock autopistol and checking to make sure it was ready for action.

"Sumfun's follerin' us?" John asked.

"Multiple somethings," Rita said, "and whatever it is, it's gaining." She rapped the back window of the driver's cab. Once Kevin was in a position to take a quick glance back, she quickly held up her gun and pointed behind them. Kevin nodded and quickly put his eyes back on the road. He now tried to keep the transport truck in the center of the tunnel as much as possible. It was about all he could do, other than dodging the odd obstacle that still popped up now and again. Maximize the field of fire, and wait.

It was about ten minutes before they caught sight of their pursuers. Eight somewhat familiar looking top-heavy muscular shapes, mere shadows given the distance but always getting a little closer.

"Shit," Rita said. "Hunters."

"Not just any hunters," Linda said. "Judging from their size and speed, I'd say those were Delta hunters. They're top of the line as far as Umbrella corporate is concerned." Linda laughed softly, raising her own pistol. "I'd say we've been given a special honor, Officer Burnside. It's not on just any quarry that Umbrella would sic eight of its top-of-the-line hunter assassins. They want to make sure we never leave this tunnel alive."

"Well, fuck that shit," Rita growled, aiming her weapon at the approaching shadows.

Just then Elza's pistol went off. One of the shadows squealed and spiraled off to one side, slowing but not stopping. The other seven kept coming. "Damn!" they heard Elza say. "My aim's off ... with only .. one eye."

"Look!" John said, pointing to the shadows behind them. "Da one Miss Elza shot is cumin' back!"

It was true. With an unexpected burst of speed, the Delta hunter that had been hit now rejoined the pack. They were close enough now to see some details as their pursuers ran under the ceiling lights. The Delta hunter that Elza had shot had a bloody hole just below its right shoulder close to the neck. The wound was trailing blood and the Delta hunter looked a bit ragged, but otherwise it ran on with the pack.

Linda shook her head. "I was right." She looked at the others. "Delta hunters have an amazing ability to take injury, far more so than the average hunter. They're also programmed to compensate for or simply ignore all but the most major of injuries. The only reason that one slowed the way it did was because it thought it had taken a critical hit. Once it realized that it hadn't, its programming kicked in. It will eventually drop in its tracks from loss of blood - it looks like Elza hit a major blood vessel instead of that thing's head - but it will keep running at that speed until it does. That's the big difference between a regular hunter and a Delta hunter. Bigger, stronger, far more endurance, far more ability to cope with or work around injury." She gave a wry smile. "As I said, I'd be honored if I and you guys weren't the targets of their current programming ... but that's not all."

"This couldn't get any worse," Rita quipped, "but do go on."

Linda smiled at the wisecrack but continued. "Like all hunters, the Delta hunter can put on a last-minute sprint or burst of speed if it thinks it's about to close with its prey. They can outrun this transport truck, given enough distance – and as soon as they get close enough, they'll leap for us. And when they do, they won't waste any time in wrestling matches like that one did with you, Mr. Kendo. They'll come in fangs bared and claws slashing, intent on killing us with the first strike. Miss Walker has the right idea. We've got to knock them down now before they can get to us."

Rita nodded, then lifted up a free hand and touched Elza's shoulder. She saw the wounded woman's head nod, then looked at John. He already had the SPAS-12 up and was drawing a bead. "They gotss ta get closah if ahm gonna do any good wid dis thing," he said. "Oder den dat, you gals'll hav'ta hit 'em a lot wid dose little bullets to make 'em even stumble, lak Miss Elza did."

"We'll do that," Rita said. She raised the Glock. "All right, everyone," she said. "Short, controlled bursts, and try to put 'em all in the same spot. You heard Miss Linda. We've got to critically injure them despite their resistance to injury, or they'll catch us before we can make it to the surface. Everyone ready? Good." She looked at everyone. "I always wanted to say this, and now I get the chance." Her voice raised as she gave the order. "Fire at will!"

Long after the events of that wild ride through the old surface tunnel were over, when Rita was asked about it by her biographer, she had this to say:

It was like being in a Western and a modern car chase movie all in one. Those things, the Delta hunters, they probably could have caught us if it had been a straight-line pursuit. But we were having to always turn up that spiral, and they were too, and now that we were shootin' at 'em, they began to weave back and forth in order to keep from bein' such easy targets. That slowed 'em too. Kevin was doin' his best, but there were times he simply couldn't avoid hittin' something that was in the middle of the road – and then we'd all get jostled and flung about, and if it hadn't been for all of those straps then us and Elza would have been flung everywhere. Those Delta hunters, though – they never gave up. They just kept right on comin' despite everything, despite the number of times we hit 'em, and knew we hit 'em. They finally got close enough for one of 'em to try to spring at us – and that's what John had waited for. He hit it full in the face with that shotgun in mid-leap. That knocked the wind outta it, that's for sure! (laugh, dies to silence). But you know what? Damnit if that one he shot didn't get back up and come runnin' back up to join the rest and try again! It was bleedin' like a butchered hog and it didn't have any face left worth mentioning, but it was still chasin' us! Kinda like in those Terminator movies, you know? They just wouldn't stop, no matter what you did, until they could get to us and kill us – every one of us.

Those things wound up chasin' us almost all the way up to the surface before we finally hurt 'em enough to put 'em down for good. (long pause) Actually we didn't have a choice. The battery had started to run down on the truck, and we had shot up over half our ammo. It was down to three of them and five of us. It was either kill or be killed – and lucky for us, we wound up being the killers.

* * * * *

The RPD survivors managed to kill all eight of the Delta hunters – but it had been a close thing. The hardest fought moment was at the end, when the battery started to run down on the transport truck and it began to slow. This had allowed the three surviving Delta hunters still pursuing the transport truck, all wounded but somehow having survived the multiple controlled bursts of gunfire Rita had directed at both them and their former companions, to close within killing range – and all three had immediately sprang at the back of the transport truck. One got blown back and away by John's SPAS-12 but the other two landed on the back of the truck, more or less. The one that was farthest forward had grabbed the back legs of Elza's gurney, and for that the Delta hunter found the wounded woman emptying her spare pistol clip in its face. This had forced it to let go, and it had sailed off of the back of the transport truck, hit the pavement several times, then rolled towards and slammed upside down into a concrete support pillar, its legs splayed over and down. It did not move again. The third hunter was only partway on the truck, having snagged the back end with the massive claws on its hands, and its legs worked rapidly behind it on the pavement moving under its feet as it sought for any leverage at all to finish getting into the back of the truck. It never found it, for Rita emptied her Glock into its face and chest while Linda shot at its clawed hands. It too came flying off the back of the transport truck, doing a peculiar combination of a side roll and half-cartwheel, until it smashed into one of the tunnel walls. It too did not move again.

The transport truck kept going, but it was moving slower and slower. Finally it was moving slow enough for Rita to feel comfortable in unbuckling her safety strap and standing up to check on Elza. The gurney now set at a slight tilted angle, with the legs at the back end of the transport truck bent and twisted somewhat from the last desperate effort by the Delta hunters to do them all in. Elza looked up at Rita and winked her one eye at her. "Still here," she said with an effort. "Hope we're ... close enough ... truck won't ... be any good ... much longer."

"We're actually pretty close," Linda said from her seat, consulting a hardcopy version of the Lab complex map they had retrieved from the Security Office. She too now unstrapped herself. John had already done so and was sitting on the front of the transport truck beside the cab, SPAS-12 cradled in his arms, literally "riding shotgun" as once cowboys had been done in the days of the Wild West. "I'm guessing we're under a mile from the topside exit," Linda said. "Officer Ryman must be milking that battery, trying to get up and over that last bit of incline."

"He's trying to get us a close as we can, so that once we have to start hoofing it we won't have that much farther to go – but where the hell is Umbrella?" Rita said. "They should have been all over us by now, especially after throwing those Delta hunters at us. We haven't heard or seen a peep from that bunch down below after that."

"Doan forgit dey haz more 'n' one bunch comin'," John pointed out. "Prob'ly anuddah bunch on its way rite now."

"And more, and more, until we're dead," Linda added. "John's right. Whatever happened to that first group down below, there's plenty more up here on the surface. We need to get wherever we're going to go once we get out of this tunnel and get out of Raccoon City while we still have a chance."

As if to emphasize Linda's point, or perhaps to contradict it, the transport truck suddenly came to a complete stop. The cab door opened and closed, and then Kevin was with them again. "That's pretty much it," he said. "We might be able to limp along a little farther, but I think at this point we'd probably move faster by just walking." He looked at Elza and her somewhat remodeled gurney. "Man, I wish I could have been back here to help out with those things."

"You ... did ... all right," Elza said, smiling. "Now ... get me down ... and let's go ...."

"Practical as ever," Rita said, smiling. "Hey, John! Give us a hand?"

"Cumin', Miss Rita," John said, sliding off the front of the now-stilled transport truck and quickly running back around to them. "Ah guess it's gurney-pushin' time, eh?"

"Yeah," Kevin said, "and since I wasn't able to help you guys earlier, I'll do it first. The rest of you keep your guns ready and your eyes peeled. How're we doin' for ammo?"

"Not too good," Rita admitted, as they now unloaded the gurney, then abandoned the now-useless transport truck and began walking the last mile of their trip. Kevin pushed Elza's gurney while the others walked on either side. "We used up about half of our nine-millimeter knocking those Delta hunters down. John's still good on shotgun shells, though. How about you?"

"I'm still kinda decent on nine-millimeter, but I'm either low or out of everything else," Kevin said. "I've only got two Magnum shells left, and that one for my Kimber we've got in storage. That, plus Elza's last flash-bang and whatever John's got in shotgun shells and you in .30-06, is probably it in terms of heavy firepower on our part."

"Good for one more big fight, maybe," Rita said thoughtfully, "and we'll probably run out in the middle of that." She looked behind them, back at the dark tunnel stretching down and away from them, and at the now-dead transport truck slowly receding in the distance. "You know, we've done a lot better than we should have."

"A lot better than I thought we would, when we first started on this little journey," Kevin said. He paused for a moment, then spoke again. "I wonder how Dr. Hamilton and his group are doing."

"Didn't we discuss this before?" Rita asked.

"Yeah," Kevin said. He looked thoughtful "They're long gone now, and there's no telling what happened to them." He remained silent for a moment, then added quietly, "I remember Elza saying they're probably all dead by now, and she may be right. Still, I'd like to hope for the best."

Rita looked at Kevin thoughtfully. "You didn't want Cindy to go with him, did you?"

Kevin looked at Rita for a moment, then faced the tunnel again in front of them before responding. "No, I didn't. I was being selfish. I wanted her to stay with me ... but I knew she wouldn't. She was already getting close to George, uhh, Dr. Hamilton by then, and I was just smart enough to realize it. That's why I let her go." He now looked over at Rita and gave her his trademark wry smile. "And if I hadn't, I'd never have found out how you felt about me – nor I for you."

Rita smiled bashfully and looked down. It was hard to tell in the dim lighting, but it looked like she was actually blushing. "I think you and I had the same problem, Kevin. We were so busy doing our own things that we never would admit to each other how we really felt. It took the Outbreak to finally bring us together, to cut through all the walls and other such crap that you and I had built up around ourselves and against each other, not to mention doing the same for everyone else." She now looked up and back at him. "Do you think we're going to make it, Kevin? I mean, be honest now."

"I think we have a better chance than most," Kevin replied honestly. "We've come so far ... but we're still not out of this yet. Please don't ask me more than that."

"That's good enough for me," Rita said, and then she fell silent.

* * * * *

It seemed to take forever until they reached and passed the last turn in the old surface access tunnel. The floor of the tunnel immediately leveled out as it widened somewhat. It now had raised walkways on both sides, running the length of the remaining section of tunnel. There was the occasional single door set into the walls along the walkways; however, nothing popped out of them to surprise the survivors. All of them turned out to be locked. There was exposed ductwork running along the ceiling now, and an occasional downward-oriented, grate-covered large vent. Nothing appeared out of these, either. The lighting was better, too, and that more than anything helped the survivors to see what was waiting for them at the tunnel's end. It was a large double-wide cantilever door, reminiscent of what you might see on an airplane hangar, and painted on it in large block capital letters were two very welcome phrases: UMBRELLA FACTORY COMPLEX/SURFACE ACCESS.

"We made it!" Linda exclaimed in obvious relief.

"'Bout time!" John added. "Gawd, but my feet are soah."

"Don't everybody get excited just yet," Kevin warned. "Stay on your guard. We've still got to get down there, and we've got to get that door open, too."

They made it to the end of the tunnel without incident, and then stopped in front of the large cantilever door. Kevin motioned for them to move Elza off to the right side of the tunnel. "Look on both sides of the door," Kevin ordered. "We're looking for a chain, a switchbox, a motor, anything that might get this door open. Linda, John, you take the left side. I'll take the right. Rita, you stay back here with Elza."

"Right," everyone answered, and then went to their respective tasks.

It didn't take long for them to find what they sought. "Over here!" Linda called from the left side of the tunnel. Kevin immediately came running, and found Linda and John standing next to a large metal box mounted just over waist high on the wall on the left side of the door. From it led a heavy machine chain that ran up to a cog and wheel assembly outside of a housing, and then to a rod assembly that ran the full length of the top of the door. It was the mechanism for raising the door.

"No obvious switch," Kevin said, his disappointment evident in his voice. "Must be opened by remote from another location."

"Hey, boss?" John said. "Whut 'bout dis?" He was pointing to the left side of the metal box.

Kevin circled around so he could see at what John was pointing. It looked like part of the main axle for the unit's motor was protruding out of that side of the box. The end of the axle had in it a familiar-looking hexagonal depression that was inset at least two inches.

"Well, I'll be," Kevin said, not noticing that Linda was now rustling through her duffel bag. "Looks like we'll be able to raise this thing manually. Hey Linda, do we still have—"

Kevin suddenly felt something jab into his side. He turned and looked down, and saw a hand crank with a folding handle being gently jabbed into his ribs. He looked up to see Linda smiling at him. "I just knew we were going to need this thing before we were done," she said. "Thankfully, we still have it."

Kevin took the proffered crank and handed it to John, who grunted and took it. "Go tell Rita to get Elza up behind the edge of the door," he said to Linda, "in that space between the door frame and the tunnel wall, I want everyone else on both sides of the door to do the same. We don't know what's going to be out there or what's going to happen once we get this door open. Tell Rita to be ready for anything – and you guys need to be ready, too."

Linda nodded, and then ran over to Rita and Elza. There was a brief discussion, and then Linda helped Rita move Elza's gurney to the far right side of the door within what little protective cover was there. Once they were safely in place, Kevin looked back at John. "All right, John," he said, as he raised his gun to the ready. "Time to do your thing."

"Rite, boss," John said. He had already slung the shotgun onto his back and inserted the crank handle into the end of the axle. He now put both hands on it and began turning. It was hard work, for the motor itself resisted his efforts. Yet it was moving, and that was all that mattered. A few inches ... a foot ... a couple of feet ... almost a yard – and then a body in ruined urban camo fell through the now-open door. Three guns were automatically trained on it from both sides of the door, but it did not move. Whatever it might have been was obviously dead, and it did not do the infrequent twitching characteristic of a dead human undergoing forced T-virus mutation. Kevin prayed as John continued to turn the crank. The door was raised the rest of the way up without further incident, and then John stopped cranking.

Kevin took a deep breath. "Keep me covered," he called to the others.

"Right on it," Rita called back, raising the Glock to the ready.

"Gotcha, boss," John answered, pulling his shotgun down and before him.

Kevin ran a low crouch across the now-open doorway to the body. He stopped and knelt down by it. Before he did anything else, he looked out at the scene that the now-opened door revealed to him. They were at the edge of what looked like a combination truckyard and main access terminal – with parked transport trucks of all shapes and sizes to the left and a large multi-door dock to the right. There was a wide open concrete-paved lot between the two big enough for a rig tractor with an extra-long, 53-foot extended single trailer to turn around with ease and with room to spare. At the far end of the lot was a chain-link fence stretching the full length across from the truckyard to the main access terminal, inset with two rolling gates and a security hut. Beyond them, a double-lane road ran off in the distance between various single- and double-story buildings of various sizes and drab colors.

He had found it. He had known it must be in the Factory somewhere, and he had found it. He had found the Umbrella Factory's truckyard. Both the means and method of their escape were now within their grasp. All he had to do now was find a truck that still had the keys in it, or find where the keys were stored, or maybe even hotwire one (a little skill he had of which he had never informed his RPD superiors), make sure the truck they chose had enough fuel to get them out of town, load Elza and everyone else on board, and then head on out. Those were minor challenges. Finding the truckyard - no, literally stumbling across it - had been the biggest hurdle to overcome – and here he was. Kevin Ryman could breathe a lot easier now. It looked like his plan was going to succeed after all.

Kevin now looked down at the body that had fallen through the door. At once his brow furrowed when he saw what lay before him. "What the hell?" he said aloud.

\-------------------------

Chapter 24 - Rescue

The lone soldier stumbled out of the doorway and onto the loading dock. His weapon was held very loosely – in fact, it seemed to be ready to fall out of his scorched and bloodied hands at any moment. His uniform was not in much better shape, with large parts of it blackened, bloodied, in tatters, or various combinations of the three. His bandolier, body harness, and webbing were in ruins, and it was a miracle that the backpack transmitter he carried still worked. He was helmetless, and his injured face sported a large bloody gash across his forehead, ending at the right temple of his soot and blood covered face.

The soldier staggered down the nearby stairs, then followed the wall for only a dozen paces before he collapsed to his knees. With an effort he raised himself, using his weapon to brace his unsteady arms and legs. He staggered on for a dozen or more paces or so, then fell again.

This time, he did not try to get up. Instead, he rolled over and willed himself to crawl to the double-wide cantilever door only a few paces away, whose shiny surface seemed to beckon him like a signal. Once there, he propped himself into a seated position as best as his ebbing strength would let him, leaning back against the door and looking out over the large concrete-covered space before him. It would be perfect for a helicopter pickup, he thought, if he could just find the strength to make the call. His weapon now fell out of his hands and off to one side, forgotten and unnoticed, as he reached a bloodied hand up to his likewise bloodied head. On it rested what might have been a headset at one time, but now was only a jangle of wires and plastic half-hanging off of the right side of his head. He fumbled with it, then found the key stud with his flagging fingers and pressed it.

"C-- .... con-- .... control ..." the man rasped. "Con-- .... control ... eh ... ech ... Echo ... Team ... con-- ... Control ..."

It was the last thing the soldier ever said. Without another sound, his eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped over. His body quivered one last time, then lay still.

The wind whistled through the trucks in the truckyard and across the parking lot towards the loading dock on the other side, scattering dust and assorted debris in its wake. It even ruffled the tattered uniform and blood-splattered hair of the now-dead soldier propped up against and off to one side of the center of the the double-wide door. It was the only thing that moved him, for he would move no more. Even the occasional quiver that told of one infected with the T-virus was absent from his lifeless body ... and that was a good thing indeed.

The soldier was at peace now. He had died in the service of God and country, and now that duty was done. He would never know if the overall mission had succeeded, if any other of his comrades had somehow survived that final fearsome fight with those things, or even if any had escaped as far as did he. His lifeless hands would no longer hold the 7.62mm FN Ordinance MC-51 submachine gun that now lay ownerless beside him. His sightless eyes would never see the wire that led from his mangled headset to the transmitter still strapped to his back ... a transmitter whose antenna was broken off at the base, and thus unable to send or receive beyond a very short distance. He would never know that his last call, his last cry for help, had never made it out of Raccoon City.

Yes ... perhaps it was for the best.

* * * * *

"Jesus God Almighty," Rita said, as she knelt beside Kevin looking over the body. "This poor bastard's been through hell. No wonder he's dead. It's a miracle he even made it this far, what with all those injuries."

"Yeah," Kevin said thoughtfully. "Do you see his shoulder patches?"

"Yes, but you know better than I what they mean," Rita said, still examining the body. "All I see is a dead soldier, and that's unusual in and of itself. Aren't they supposed to be holding the quarantine line?"

"U.S. Army Special Operations Command," Kevin stated. "Echo Team Task Force. Best of the best. These guys make the Green Berets look like kindergarten kids." He looked again at the body. "I wonder what they're doing here?"

"Well, I'll give you one guess, and I'll bet you get it right the first time," Rita said, as she now began searching the body. As for Kevin, he reached down and picked up the dead soldier's MC-51. He looked it over, smiled grimly, then reached down and began to unfasten the dead soldier's ammo bandolier. "Sorry, fella," he said, "but right now we need this more than you do."

"I got his pistol and pistol belt," Rita said. "Help me roll him over, and I'll search his backpack while you get his dog tags."

"Right," Kevin said. He deftly removed them from around the dead man's neck, pocketed them, then helped Rita roll the body over. Echo Team Command would want to know what had happened to their man.

"Hey, what's this?" Rita said. She looked at the small backpack more closely, then up at Kevin. "This is a radio transmitter. See for yourself."

Kevin took a look, and then grimaced. "Yeah. That explains the headset he's wearing – or rather, what's left of it." He pointed to one side, where a short piece of metal extended up for about a quarter-inch before it ended in a broken-off segment. It was all that was left of the antenna. "Poor bastard." Kevin said, shaking his head. "I wonder how long he went without knowing his transmitter wouldn't transmit."

"Do you think we can fix it?" Rita asked.

Kevin looked at both the transmitter and the mangled headset. "I dunno," he said, as he took them off of the body, "but it might be worth a try. It would be nice if the authorities knew we were comin', so they don't gun us down at the quarantine line."

"Hey, guys?" Linda said, from the right edge of the door, which she now stood behind with Elza's gurney behind her. "There's movement out there beyond the fence."

"Shit!" Kevin and Rita exclaimed at once. They both went down as low as they could. Kevin already had the MC-51 and bandolier slung over his shoulder, as did Rita with the pistol belt on her own. Now Kevin took the transmitter and headset in his hands, nodded at Rita, and together they made a stooping run towards the right-hand side of the doorway. They were not a moment too soon, as a fusillade of bullets tore into the tunnel floor where they had been standing seconds ago, then walked behind them all the way to their cover on the side. The shooters had been too far away to be accurate, however, and the pair made it to safety without harm. Kevin sat down his load, then both unslung the dead man's MC-51 and checked its clip. He suddenly grinned, risked a quick look out the doorway, then before anyone could say or do anything he was running sideways across the opening, laying down fire as he ran. A string of figures that had started to make its way towards them down at the far end of the loading dock either scattered or dropped in their tracks, as others by the fence tried to return Kevin's fire. His gun fired bigger rounds than theirs, however, and again, he made it across the doorway without being hit – literally diving to the cover of the left side as one spray of enemy fire came too close for comfort. He was back up and in a combat crouch, looking across the open tunnel entrance to Rita. He signaled a throwing motion, then unholstered Elza's autopistol and flung it back across the opening. At least one of the Umbrella Security Service paramilitaries - for that is who their foes were - tried to hit it but he missed, and it slid into the right side of the tunnel directly behind Rita. She scooped it up, and now armed with both autopistols helped Kevin to trade fire with their foes across the lot.

"Why did Kevin do that?" Linda asked John, who was in front of her with his shotgun. She had her own pistol out, too. "That was crazy!"

"Uh-uh," John said, shaking his head. "We had-a blind spot cuz no one wuz on da udder side. We cud see da truck lot, but we cudn't see da loadin' dock. Dey was tryin' ta sneak up on us, an' we'd-a nevah knowed it." He laughed in admiration. "Da boss is a brave guy. Crazy, yeah, but brave. Dat's why he's da boss."

Just then they heard a muffled whump! from across the lot. "Hit the dirt!" Kevin yelled. Everyone did as they were told. Less than two seconds later, a tremendous explosion came from their right, followed quickly by an entire series of multiple explosions. Flame, smoke, and flying metal debris flew everywhere.

Rita risked a look out of the tunnel opening, and then her face quickly paled. "Kevin!" she called. "They hit the truckyard!"

Kevin could not see what had happened from his position behind the left side of the doorway, but he had heard the explosions, and could still hear and feel the heat from the fires now raging there. He had also seen the flying debris, and could see for himself the smoke that was now pouring from the truckyard. Rita, on the right side of the doorway, had a clear view of it – as well as what was happening to all the trucks that had been parked there. Most of them were now blazing ruins, and the ones that weren't soon would be. Their fires raged high into the evening sky, adding their own orange pallor to the red hues of the sunset clouds. More explosions shook the area as several other trucks blew up.

Kevin suddenly leaned out from cover and opened up a long burst with the MC-51. Several of the U.S.S. men, who were gathered around a large cylindrical object at the other end of the lot, promptly fell down and did not get back up. Several more spun or crawled away, spurting blood from one or more wounds. Almost a half-dozen of the other U.S.S. men promptly opened fire in return, forcing Kevin to dodge back under cover. Now Rita went out, both autopistols blazing, and broke up their act somewhat, but a fresh burst of gunfire from another group of U.S.S. men forced her back under cover, too.

Rita looked across at Kevin, who had just finished slamming another full clip into his MC-51. "What is it?" she called across the doorway.

"Light mortar!" Kevin responded grimly. His expression was cold, and his lips were drawn into a thin line. "We've got to keep them away from it! If they hit the tunnel mouth, we're toast!"

Rita nodded. Her face then brightened as she got an idea. "That transmitter!" she exclaimed. "We can call for help!"

"Antenna's broken, remember?!" Kevin called back, as he leaned out the doorway, let off another burst of automatic weapons fire, then dodged back under cover. A scattering of return fire ricocheted off of the concrete uncomfortably close to him and back into the tunnel beyond, or bounced off of the thick steel walls on his side of the doorway.

"Not for long!" Rita called in reply, then looked back at the others. "John! Linda! You'll have to fix the radio! Kevin and I are kinda busy right now!" She now ducked out and briefly let loose with both autopistols, then ducked back under cover and began reloading the Glock. Bullets now ricocheted all around the group on the right side of the doorway, but fortunately nobody was hit.

"What's wrong with it?" Linda asked.

"Antenna's broken!" Rita exclaimed, as she hurriedly reloaded the clip for Elza's autopistol. "Elza can probably tell you how to fix it! Hurry!" With both autopistols now reloaded, Rita readied herself at the doorway again.

Elza's gurney had been shoved as far against the right side of the tunnel as the raised walkway would permit once the shooting started. John, who was the closest, leaned back so he could talk to her over the gunfire. "Boss says you kin help us fix dat radio," he said, even as Linda edged up as close as she could.

The badly wounded young woman nodded. "He said ... transmitter's good ... but antenna's ... broken. Need ... to make ... new antenna." She pointed with her right hand at one of their duffel bags. It had been slung up on the raised walkway to keep it out of the line of fire. "Get pliers ... and ... piece of wire ... from RPD ... last bit left ... strip ends ... bare wire .... Fix ... one end ... to ... broken ... antenna. Fix ... other end ... to ... any metal ... bare patch ... that beam ..." she said, motioning wearily at one of the nearby tunnel support beams. The effort to talk was draining her strength. "Use that ... for antenna."

John turned to Linda. "Ya got dat?"

Linda nodded. "Got it." She immediately reached for the duffel bag and opened it, then fished around until she pulled out both the piece of wire and the pliers. At the same time, John grabbed the transmitter and headset and pulled them both up onto the walkway's edge where Linda could reach them. She then stopped and looked helplessly at John. "How do you strip wire?" she asked.

John knew it was an honest question. Linda Merton had probably not done anything of that sort in her life. "Lemme do it," he said quietly. Without another word, she handed both the wire and the pliers both to him – and watched him expertly strip about a half-inch of the insulation off of both ends of the wire.

In the meantime, as Linda and John worked, Elza called to Rita with all of the strength she could still muster. "Rita! You've ... got to make ... call!" she said, as loudly as she could between bursts of gunfire. "Authority!"

"Understood!" Rita shouted back. She and Kevin were the only two RPD officers among them, making them the only authority figures in their group insofar as the U.S. Army was concerned. She looked over at Kevin, who also had heard Elza's words, and he nodded in agreement. Both she and Kevin now opened fire as the decimated ranks of the U.S.S. forces at the other end of the parking lot tried and failed again to reposition the light mortar.

"Got it!" John exclaimed. In one of his hands he held the wire with its now-stripped ends. He hopped up onto the ledge with Linda. "Git sum uv dat whait tape an' cum ovah heah!" he said to Linda, "Les' rig this thing to dis beam!"

The two of them worked feverishly over the crippled Echo Team radio transmitter. Following John's directions, Linda secured one end of the wire to the transmitter's broken antenna with medical tape, while he scraped off a bare patch on the inside of the nearby support beam with Elza's knife. Once he was done, he taped his own end of the wire to the bare metal. He shouted to Rita over the gunfire. "All done!" he announced.

"Trade places!" Rita said. At that moment Kevin stepped out and began laying down covering fire, making the U.S.S. forces at the other end of the lot stay down. Even as he did, Rita and John quickly switched places, with John now equipped with the autopistols and holding Rita's former post by the right side of the doorway. "Don't worry about tryin' to hit 'em," she advised, as she hopped up on the ledge with Linda and the transmitter. "All you're tryin' to do is make 'em keep their heads down."

"I kin do dat," John said, as he suddenly dashed out and opened fire, just as Kevin dashed back in.

Rita now powered up the transmitter. She had to get almost on top of it and right against the support beam, due to the shortness of their crude wire splice. She also had to hold the headset up to the side of her head, as its mangled frame all but prevented wearing save in the most uncomfortable of ways. She looked over at Kevin and called to him. "Who am I calling?"

"Echo Team Command!" Kevin said. "Hurry! I think more are coming down the road!" It was true. Two black slab-nosed heavy transport trucks had just come into view at the far end of the road. They would arrive at their location in less than a minute.

"Here goes nothing!" Rita said, as she keyed the headset mike. She yelled as loud as she could, just in case the mike was damaged. "Echo Team Command, this is Rita Burnside of the RPD! Mayday! Mayday! We are pinned down and taking fire from Umbrella Security forces at the truckyard of the Umbrella Factory Complex! Mayday! Mayday! Echo Team Command, this is Rita Burnside of the RPD! I repeat, Mayday! Mayday! Over!"

There was a pause of about five seconds, during which the survivors looked anxiously at each other. Gunfire from the U.S.S. forces peppered the outside edges of the open doorway, but they ignored it. The nine millimeter pistol-type parabellum rounds that they were firing from their standard issue MP-5 submachine guns were too weak to pierce the reinforced steel sides and thick concrete of the tunnel entrance. Then the radio crackled with static, and the strong voice of a man sounded loud and clear. "Miss Burnside! This is Colonel Counce, Echo Team Command! How did you get on this frequency?!"

"We found one of your men a little while ago!" Rita said. Her voice was still raised and maintained its anxious tone, although it was not nearly as loud as before. "He was dead by the time we found him, but his transmitter still worked. Colonel, please! We've got additional Umbrella forces moving in on us!"

"I've already dispatched a Blackhawk with gunship escort to your location, Miss Burnside. They'll be there inside of five minutes. Can your group hold out until then?"

"We'll sure as hell try, Colonel."

"One more thing. Did you know you're the first living RPD officer we've been able to talk to since we've entered the city?"

"I'm not surprised, Colonel. What we've got with us is probably why Umbrella has killed all the rest. We evacuated the old RPD station with a young woman, Elza Walker, who was given certain police files by the late station chief before he died. These contain hard evidence of multiple illegal and unlawful activities on Umbrella's part, sir. It was her job to get them out of Raccoon City and we've been tryin' to help her out. That's why they want our hide any way they can get it! Please, sir – she's badly injured!"

"Shit! This is what we've – is she infected?"

"No sir, of that we're certain, but please hurry! Umbrella has been trying hard as hell to kill Miss Walker, and us too, sir!"

"Understood, Miss Burnside. Just hold out a little longer. Help's on the way. Counce, out."

Rita lowered the handset and looked over at Kevin, who grinned at her. "Only five minutes," he said loudly. "We can do it."

Just then a withering barrage of automatic weapons fire both poured through the open doorway and slammed into either wall on either side. Kevin and John crouched back as far as they could get. Kevin knew what was coming and he motioned to the others to back up from the door as far as they could get without exposing themselves to the shooters outside. Even as they were moving back, however, the sound he was expecting to hear came.

Whump!

Just over two seconds later, a light mortar round hit and exploded only a few feet in front of the doorway. The blast sent concrete dust and debris flying everywhere. The survivors in the tunnel both heard and felt the blast, as well as the multiple small impacts from flying concrete chips. Some were skinned and were cut by this, but none severely. All were covered with a fair amount of concrete dust. Even before the echo of the blast had died down, however, Kevin had popped out of cover and opened fire. Again the U.S.S. light mortar crew went down; however, return fire was sent back his way more quickly and in greater volume than before. He just barely made it back to cover without taking a major hit, but winced and turned sharply as a nine millimeter round grazed his upper right arm.

"Kevin!" Rita called, seeing Kevin turn and stagger back under cover.

Kevin's head popped back up. He was smiling but it was forced, and he gritted his teeth as he held one gloved hand over the wound. "Just ... a flesh wound ..." he managed to get out. "Always ... wanted ... to say that."

Now it was John's turn to pop out of cover – but he was already scrambling to get back under after only firing off a short burst from both autopistols. The volume of return fire that rose to greet him was straight out of a movie, and it was a miracle that he didn't even get winged, as Kevin had been. Nevertheless, in later and more peaceful days he would swear he felt a shell fly through his hair as he jumped back, and he could also show his guests the two holes in his old battle-worn T-shirt from the Outbreak, where a nine millimeter round had gone straight through, missing his body by a mere fraction of an inch as if flapped around him. Even as John finished getting back under cover, however, Kevin already had out their last flash-bang grenade. He pulled the pin, then lobbed it as hard as he could from behind cover, praying that it both went in the right direction and went far enough.

Fortunately for both Kevin and the survivors, his wish was granted on both counts. There was the now-familiar deafening clap of thunder from well out in the lot before the doorway, instantaneously followed by a blinding flash of light that lasted for several seconds. It then slowly died away. Kevin risked a look out the door. The Umbrella forces were retreating. They had made it about a third of the way down both sides of the lot, running alongside both the loading dock and the edge of the truckyard, before Kevin had thrown the flash-bang. Now they were retreating back to the far end of the lot, helping or dragging their wounded with them.

Kevin let out a long breath, then leaned back against the wall. His upper right arm hurt like hell, and he could feel the bloody weal left by the passing bullet throb and ache. It was not a critical wound, though, and it would hold. He looked across the tunnel mouth at the others. Everyone seemed okay, although all of them were covered with concrete dust and sporting various small cuts that they did not have before the second mortar round hit. He waved to get Rita's attention, then called across to her. "Just five minutes, right?"

"That's what they said," Rita answered. Kevin noticed she now had the hunting rifle with her, propped up close to her against the outer edge of the walkway. John had handed both of the autopistols back to Rita, and had instead unlimbered his shotgun. Rita motioned to Kevin in combat sign language: how much ammo do you have left?

Kevin responded likewise: three clips in bandolier, one in gun – you?

Rita signaled back: almost out of nine millimeter – will have to switch to rifle, shotgun, and pistol we got from body.

A question arose in Kevin's mind, and he now signaled it: what kind of pistol?

Rita grinned and held it up. It was a ParaOrdinance P14-45. She also signaled: 50 rounds, plus a full clip.

Kevin flashed her his trademark smile and signaled back: you lucky bitch.

Technically a combat hand sign did not exist for that last word, but both Kevin and Rita had done like anyone who had both learned and used combat hand language for any length of time, and as most people do with any form of language. They had learned to swear in it, too Both were well versed in the unofficial signs used for swearing that everyone in the military and police knew but you would never find in any training manual. In response to that particular word Rita had mocked surprise, then grinned and flashed the flying finger of friendship at him before putting her new weapon back into its holster.

Kevin now risked another look outside. He noted that the Umbrella forces had broken down the light mortar that had been mounted by the guard shack. Apparently its failure to collapse the tunnel mouth on its second hit, plus Kevin's unexpected use of the flash-bang grenade - they had no way of knowing it was the only one he had - had caused them to rethink their strategy. He soon saw why. A team of them was setting up something big and heavy on a tripod in the gate, partially shielded by one of the parked trucks. It was a TOW missile launcher. "Shit," he thought to himself, "they're not fuckin' around this time. Where the hell's that chopper?!" As if in response, several of the U.S.S. men must have seen his head poking around the doorway, because they immediately shouldered their MP-5s and opened fire. Kevin dodged back around the doorway just as several salvos of nine millimeter tore through the air where he had just been only a split second before.

It was then that he heard it. It started out as a low rumble, like that of a distant motor sounding from far away. This motor began getting closer and closer, though, getting louder and louder, although the sound had a peculiar muffled quality to it. Kevin attributed this to hearing it from inside the tunnel ... and that meant if he couldn't see it, then the gunship could be coming from only one direction. He again raised his MC-51 to the ready, ignoring the now-steady painful throbbing from his upper right arm, and then looked over at a wondering Rita and the others. "I think the cavalry's just arrived," he announced with a grin.

* * * * *

The U.S.S. paramilitaries had indeed changed tactics due to Kevin's unexpected response to the second mortar hit at the tunnel mouth. They had been under the impression that the RPD fugitives were armed only with a mixture of pistols, shotguns, and police-style machine pistols. Finding out that one of them was wielding what appeared to be a 7.62mm military assault rifle and knew how to use it had come as a complete surprise. Second had been the ferocity of the defense put up by the fugitives. But even as the Umbrella Security teams began to use their obvious superiority in numbers to wrap things up, that was when the fugitives had unveiled their third nasty surprise: they had flash-bang grenades. Effectively used, those could disrupt almost any frontal assault on the surface tunnel mouth, and that was why the local U.S.S. commander had recalled his men. He had decided instead for a simple yet effective tactic: to seal the tunnel mouth with the fugitives still inside. That way, the horde of lickers that had wiped out the first U.S.S. intercept team below in the Lab, and was even now making its way back up to the surface via the tunnel, would eventually do their dirty work for them. All they had to do was collapse the tunnel mouth and wait. That was where the TOW missile launcher came into play. The target had been too stoutly built by Umbrella itself to be easily collapsed by the light mortar that the first U.S.S. group on the scene had happened to have with them. Even so, it had proven its limited worth in taking out all of the vehicles in the truckyard, and thus denying the fugitives the only means of transportation within easy reach. Now that their immediate hope of escape had been denied, the hope of the fugitives for even the chance of survival must be crushed as well.

It was just as final assembly of the TOW launcher was being completed when a most unwelcome sight for the U.S.S. popped up above the horizon almost directly above the surface tunnel mouth. It was an Apache AH-64D Longbow attack helicopter, and the very first thing it did upon revealing itself was to open fire with both its 30mm chain gun and its 2.75 inch rocket launchers on the U.S.S. paramilitaries. Multiple explosions ripped through the spot as the TOW launcher was disintegrated where it sat. Fully half of the U.S.S. paramilitaries were torn apart where they stood or tried to bring their weapons up in a doomed effort to shoot at the Longbow. The other half immediately dived for cover, any cover, anything at all, but very few found it. Most of them were eviscerated by the Longbow's chain gun where they had dived or crawled, and what few had managed to find some halfway decent cover had it blown away a few seconds later by a second round of 2.75 inch rockets. By the time the Longbow finished dealing with the U.S.S., there wasn't a single U.S.S. paramilitary left alive on the far end of the lot.

Rita heard the Echo Team transmitter squawk, and she lifted its mangled headset up to her ear. "Miss Burnside? This is Echo Escort Three. Are you still there?"

Rita keyed the mike. "Yes sir, all of us, and boy are we glad to see you!"

There was a laugh over the radio. "Glad to oblige, ma'am. By the way, that taxi you called for is right behind me. I'm going to vector them in and have 'em land right in front of you, so you folks can get that hurt girl on board and get the hell outta there."

"Sounds good to me, sir."

There was another laugh. "Any time, ma'am. Any time."

Now a new voice cut into the radio conversation. "Miss Burnside, this is your taxi calling. I'm Crew Chief Wilson. My bird will be there and down for you people ASAP. Have everyone ready to move as soon as we hit the deck, okay? This LZ may be hot."

"Got it." Rita had no prior military experience, however, she had been around enough military types and seen enough war movies to know what a hot LZ meant. Chief Wilson feared that more Umbrella forces might show up after his helicopter had landed, and he didn't want to keep "his bird" on the ground any longer than necessary.

Now the first radio voice cut back in. "I'm going to sweep the area, chief, just in case any more of those black gooks decide to join the party."

The second radio voice responded. "Roger on that."

As everyone looked out the tunnel mouth, they saw the Longbow swoop down and across the full length of the lot, fly over the now-decimated U.S.S. position at its far end, then bank away gently to the left. Seconds later, another helicopter appeared flying overhead into view traveling along the same path as the Longbow. It was a UH-60 Blackhawk transport helicopter painted in U.S. Army SOC colors. Instead of following the Longbow, however, it stopped at a point about one-third of the way between the tunnel mouth and the now-wrecked gate at the far end, hovered briefly, then turned and began to descend for a landing. By that time Kevin had already ran across the open doorway back to join them, and was helping Rita round everyone and everything up.

"John, you go first with Elza," Kevin ordered. "Rita, you go with them, just in case."

"Got it," both replied, almost in unison.

"Linda, you'll be next," Kevin said, turning to the Umbrella woman, "and I'll stay back until last to cover everyone."

"Kevin, they'll have a gunner—" Rita began, but Kevin waved her off.

"Anything can happen," Kevin explained. "I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"All right," Rita said, conceding the point. She put her hand up to the side of Kevin's face and held it there for a moment. Kevin reached up and put his hand over her own. Then the moment had passed, and they were busy hustling everyone into position.

The Blackhawk touched down moments later. Both side doors rolled open, and three soldiers immediately appeared. One was holding a heavy machine gun of some kind and the other a standard M4 carbine, while the third had a red cross on a white field painted on his flight helmet. The one with the red cross was a flight medic, and he waved to the open doorway, making a "come on" motion with his arm. As for the two armed soldiers, they planted themselves before each open door, sweeping everything they saw with their weapons.

"Go!" Kevin said, and with that the first relay of the survivors began.

Rita felt small and exposed as she ran beside Elza's gurney across the open lot, trying to hold it steady with one hand and pointed towards the helicopter while holding one of her autopistols with the other, even as John pushed it from behind with all the speed and strength he could muster. She could see the gurney jostling and Elza was biting her lower lip, but she never uttered a sound. Elza was doing nothing except concentrating on the pain, doing her best to fight it and not to cry out or groan in any way. For John's part, all he knew was straight ahead and onward with Miss Elza's gurney as fast as he could, while Rita took care of the steering and guarding. He was going to get her out of there. He had promised himself he would, and now it was happening at last. John was doing his best not to screw it up in any way, and to get her to those Army guys as fast as he physically could was his only concern. Because of that, the three of them covered the space between the open tunnel mouth and the landed Blackhawk at a fairy good clip despite their burden. They arrived in front of the open door of the Blackhawk closest to them almost out of breath, and immediately the flight medic came over to help them. Together, they quickly but carefully transferred the wounded Elza to a stretcher that was firmly latched down inside the Blackhawk. Once that was done, the flight medic nodded to the soldier with the heavy machine gun, who was Crew Chief Wilson. He looked back at the open doorway and stuck up an arm, making a "come on" wave to both Kevin and Linda.

"Your turn," Kevin said, still holding the MC-51 before him in a ready position. "Go!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Linda said, as she took off at a run towards the Blackhawk.

* * * * *

What happened next took all of four seconds.

Three of the U.S.S. paramilitaries had escaped the death and destruction wrought by the Longbow on their fellows only a short time before. They had been the ones farthest forward along the side of the lot next to the burning truckyard when it had attacked, and they had simply dived among the burning trucks for cover. That was how they had survived the attack, but then their route back out of the truckyard had been blocked when one of the trucks had exploded during the Longbow attack. This has forced them to find another way out through the flames and wreckage. They had finally found themselves against the far wall shared by both the truckyard and the lot, the same where the mouth of the surface tunnel was located, and they had been working their way back up along this, dodging burning wreckage along the way, when the Blackhawk had come in and landed. As it just so happened, they finally emerged in the clear just as Linda was starting her dash to the safety of the chopper. They recognized her at once, and did not waste any time carrying out their orders from Umbrella corporate. Their MP-5 machine pistols immediately came to bear and they opened fire – one aiming at the chopper, one at the tunnel mouth, and one directly at the running form of Linda Merton.

Kevin could not see the whole thing, being both behind Linda and drawing his own share of fire from one of the U.S.S. paramilitaries, which he returned in kind. Nevertheless he saw the first nine millimeter slug tear through her right calf, and that immediately threw her off her stride. A split second later, two more slugs tore through her left thigh, causing her to whip around in the exact opposite direction. More and more bullets hit, mostly in her legs and upper body, and both Kevin and the other survivors already at the Blackhawk could but watch as Linda's body began to dance a fatal pirouette, being turned this way and that with each bullet that hit her. In later years John would clearly remember starting to tear up as he saw Linda stumble and start to go down. Both Rita and Elza would remember the look of horror and dreadful realization that washed over Linda's face – right before a pair of nine millimeter slugs slammed into her head, tearing their way through and out the other side and dragging most of the contents of her skull with them in their passing. Linda Merton was dead before her body ever hit the ground.

Crew Chief Wilson had also been hit; nevertheless, he was returning fire. So too was the M4 gunner, who had switched doors as soon as the shooting began. The Blackhawk had been hit, too. Its front canopy was shattered and the engine was pouring black oily smoke. By this time Kevin was also returning fire, and between him and the two Army gunners they managed to take down all three U.S.S. paramilitaries. It was too late for Linda Merton, though, whose lifeless body now lay in a large splatter and ever-spreading pool of blood on the pavement. It lay sprawled only a dozen or so feet away from the Blackhawk. She had been close ... so close ....

Kevin now took off at a run, his MC-51 in a combat carry and pointed at the truckyard, as he now sprinted across the lot towards the chopper. He saw Crew Chief Wilson move up front to check on the pilot, who appeared to be all right despite the shattered canopy, and he could see the two of them begin to talk fiercely to each other. He did not look at Linda's body as he approached, running past it without so much as a glance. He had seen all of that horror he wanted to see. He made it to the Blackhawk in record time, and the flight medic helped him find a seat next to Rita inside the chopper. The M4 gunner closed the far side door even as Crew Chief Wilson scrambled back to join them, slamming the other door shut in front of them. "Go! Go!" he urged the pilot. Everyone could hear the warning buzzers coming from the cockpit, and a quick glance in that direction showed that almost half of the pilot's trouble board was lit solid red. There was an acrid smell in the air - the odor of burned engine oil - as the pilot revved up the Blackhawk's engine. Kevin had heard enough Blackhawks in his military service to know that something was definitely wrong with this one. There was a whine and a clanging noise that undercut its normal engine sound, and the entire chopper shook as the engine revved up. Whatever the pilot was doing was working, however, for the damaged Blackhawk slowly lifted up from the lot. It banked once over the fallen body of Linda Merton, as if saluting her, then banked the opposite direction and flew away, climbing ever so slowly as it left that sad scene behind.

* * * * *

The field medic quickly dressed both Kevin's and Chief Wilson's arm wounds. Kevin spoke to Wilson even as this was being done. "What's the situation, chief?"

Wilson shook his head. "It ain't good, if that's what you're askin'. Engine's shot up, and we've only got partial oil pressure. Bastards hit one of the oil lines, among other things. Only half the pilot's instruments are working, too. The rest are shot to hell. It's a wonder he didn't get hit, either – but he ducked just in the nick of time, and his panels took his slugs for him." The medic finished with him, and then Wilson stood up. He looked up front, then back at Kevin. "We're not going to make it all the way to Echo Base like this. I'm going to go call for help and have them send us another bird. We'll probably have to set this lame duck down just outside of town. Excuse me, please. I gotta see to my bird."

Kevin watched as Wilson joined the pilot up in the cockpit, helping him to wrestle with the damaged Blackhawk's sluggish controls. He saw movement outside the window, and looked out. The Longbow was flying back to join them. He looked down, and was surprised to see that the Blackhawk was slowly moving just above treetop level. Then again, given the way the engine sounded and all of the oily black smoke they were blowing, he shouldn't have been surprised at all. He looked around the passenger compartment. Rita sat beside him, saying nothing and looking very thoughtful. The flight medic was tending to Elza on the stretcher, while John sat by himself watching them. He had a look of honest concern on his face – the half-frustrated expression of a man who wants to help a loved one in need but doesn't know how. There was only one thing he could do, and he was already doing it, as he alternatively clenched and unclenched his fists around the SPAS-12 to deal with his inner tensions. Now the speaker back in the passenger compartment crackled, and Kevin sat back to listen.

"Blackhawk, this is Echo Escort comin' to join you. Sorry we're late."

"What the hell took you guys so long?"

"The colonel diverted us to go after a T-carrier that had been vectored your way. Umbrella wants these civvies' asses real bad, it seems."

"Fuck for sure, if they sent in a T-carrier."

"How'd you guys turn out? Looks like you took some fire back there."

"Yeah, some of those black gooks were playin' possum in that burning truck lot. We got 'em, but they shot us up pretty good. Killed one of the civvies, too. Shot her all to hell."

"They shot up a woman? Damn, but that's cold!"

"That's Umbrella for you. Will keep you posted. Blackhawk, out."

"We'll stay with you until you can't go any more. Echo Escort, out."

Kevin now felt a familiar arm slip around his waist. He raised up to give it more room, then put his own arm around Rita's shoulders. She nestled into him, snuggling in close. Now she looked both sad and thoughtful, and there were tears in her eyes. Kevin figured he could probably make a good guess as to why, given the radio conversation all of them had just overheard. To himself, Kevin wondered if Crew Chief Wilson had flipped open the speaker switch deliberately, since cockpit radio calls were usually private. It didn't matter in the long run, he decided – but he was glad that the chief had let them eavesdrop all the same.

Rita now spoke softly, almost reverently, as a tear fell from one of her eyes. "No one deserved to die like that."

Kevin took one of her hands in his own and squeezed it, even as he hugged her close. "No, Rita. Not even Linda. Like Chief Wilson said, though. That's the kind of people who've been trying to kill all of us."

"Yeah," Rita said sadly, "and not just those 'overenthusiastic subordinates,' either."

"No," Kevin agreed, "but those who give those orders as well as carry them out." He took in a deep breath. "That's why we need to get out of here with Elza and that evidence. We need to make sure that the assholes that both work at and run Umbrella finally go down once and for all." He let out a long sigh, then fell silent again.

"What?" Rita said, sensing something else unsaid.

"Nothing," Kevin said, staring into nowhere.

Rita thought for a moment, then laid her head on his shoulder. "You're not blaming yourself now for Linda, too, are you?"

"Rita, if I had—"

"Sssssshhhhhhh," Rita interrupted, squeezing his waist. "You couldn't have helped her any more than you could have helped Sherry, Kevin. She was a marked woman, and she knew it. Let her go, Kevin. Please."

Kevin said nothing, continuing to stare into nowhere. Rita worried for him, wondering if this time he would allow himself to sink down again into that same dangerous depth where he had found himself after they had lost Sherry. She then felt him squeeze back, and with that knew everything would be all right with him.

Suddenly the speaker crackled to life again with the voice of the Longbow's pilot. "What the fuck?!?!" he swore in amazement. He then hurriedly added in a very excited tone, "Blackhawk, Blackhawk, this is Echo Escort Three! Put your foot in it and get some altitude, man!! You've got a Tyrant on your tail!!!"

* * * * *

Down at ground level, running with incredible speed along the empty road being followed by the damaged Blackhawk as it limped its way towards the eastern edge of Racoon City's cross-river industrial district, was a something like no other zombie, monster, mutant, or anything else that the survivors had yet encountered during their Outbreak adventure. It was as tall as the tallest man who had ever lived, and was wearing what looked like a large black rubber overcoat held in place by an oversize black belt with multiple pouches. Its feet flew along the worn asphalt inside of large leather boots that could have served as hats for the average person, given the size of the legs that were churning them along the street. It had the speed of a cheetah at full tilt and the agility of a spider at its most excited, and complementing those abilities was a face as cold and expressionless as Death itself. It bounded on or over or simply smashed its way through whatever obstacles were in its path, following the Blackhawk in an unerring straight line, matching its course exactly ... and closing the distance all the while. It was a Tyrant – the top-of-the-line insofar as Umbrella's bio-organic weaponry (B.O.W.) product line was concerned. It had been dispatched with five other Tyrants inside a T-carrier for a singular mission, and electronic leads to its brain inside its shipping case had kept its mind constantly up-to-date with the latest information on its designated targets. Somehow it had survived the shooting-down, crash, and destruction of its T-carrier while the five other Tyrants had not. Now that it was free, it had automatically begun to execute its programmed mission. Nothing was going to get in its way of carrying out its assigned task – most certainly not this oversized mechanical gnat that was still buzzing about, trying to finish the job it had so obviously failed to do only a short time before. The Tyrant should have died then, but it did not thanks to the quirksome chances of the fortunes of war ... for war it was now, and there could be only one champion. Survival, after all, went to the fittest.

Screaming down from the sky came the Longbow, spitting 30mm uranium-depleted death from its swivel-mounted chain gun. The already fast-moving Tyrant put on another burst of speed, running ahead of the shells smacking the pavement just behind it and keeping just out of reach. Now the Longbow put on its own burst of speed, trying to walk its fire up and into the Tyrant as it closed with its target at a speed that the Tyrant could not match even at its most extreme. Suddenly the Tyrant dodged sharply to the right into a cluster of assorted buildings, and the Longbow's walking fire found only empty street to hit. The Longbow overshot its target but quickly recovered, banking hard to the left and whipping back around in order to get back to the Tyrant's new location as fast as possible.

Nothing. No sign. Not a peep. The Tyrant had gone to ground.

Echo Escort Three hovered in place for a moment as its crew discussed what to do next both among themselves and also with Echo Team Command. This threat could not be left behind to simply pick up the pursuit again. U.S. Army SOC knew full well of what a Tyrant was capable of doing, thanks to the multiple action reports sent in by its own Echo Teams it had deployed throughout Raccoon City only a day into the Outbreak. Not all of them had survived those encounters, but the few that had - such as Echo Teams Two and Six - had given reports that would have been well beyond the pale, had not the SOC already had some inkling of what they might be up against before going in. This thing had to be stopped now, not only because of both what it could do, but also because of who and what the damaged Blackhawk had on board, as it desperately tried to make its way to the edge of town and the intended rendezvous. Too much was at stake to risk failure. That is why, after a short delay, the Longbow backed up a considerable distance in mid-air, still keeping the entire cluster of buildings in its sights. A minute passed ... then another ... and then an infrared sensor went off, showing a large, human-like form crouching down in front of one of the buildings. Echo Escort Three suddenly let loose with a pair of Hellfire missiles at the target, and the entire cluster of buildings promptly disappeared in an inferno of fire, smoke, and flying rubble.

The Longbow remained where it was until the worst of the firestorm settled down, then it came close and began to slowly circle the ruined buildings, still burning and smoking in places, looking for any sign of the Tyrant. It kept its cockpit forward as the Longbow's body itself rotated, always remaining oriented for maximum visibility of the most area by its crew. They were good, and its pilot was an excellent one. They were taking no chances.

The motion of the Longbow suddenly stopped as it froze in position and began to hover in place. The view from its cockpit was now centered on a large rubber overcoat, half covered by rubble and dust, lying in front of the burning ruins of a three-story building. It continued to hover in place, as if unsure of what it saw, and then began to carefully edge forward, keeping its chain gun trained on the ruins of the coat. Its crew swept everything they saw both with their own senses and the Longbow's augmented ones. Their own human senses were limited, though, and clouded by both the smoke and fire. The Longbow's electronic sensors were also confused by all the heat that the fire in the building was putting out. That is why neither human nor electronic senses gave any sign of the threat that lurked on the burning building's half-destroyed roof ... until it was too late.

Suddenly an infrared alarm went off inside the Longbow's cockpit. By the time the crew reacted, the Tyrant was already hurtling through the air straight at the Longbow. It crashed into the front of the helicopter, immediately latching its limbs around its frame, then with one of its powerful arms smashed through the cockpit and pulverized the head of its pilot. It then twisted to one side and fell away, careful to avoid the spinning rotors, as the Longbow suddenly careened out of control. Its rotors hit the edge of the burning building and the helicopter promptly jacknifed, sending it out of control and flying into another ruined building. There was a tremendous explosion and fireball, and then Echo Escort Three was no more.

The mostly naked Tyrant stood in front of the building for a moment, surveying the madly flaming ruin of the mechanical gnat that had once dared to try to keep it from its designated prey. It ignored its own blood dripping from the bloodied knuckles of its right hand, blood that now spotted its own dusty overcoat, just like it ignored anything and everything that did not directly affect its programmed mission. Then without another glance, it reached down, picked up, and re-donned the rubber overcoat from the street that it had left there as bait for the Longbow. It promptly broke into a full run, zipping after the oily black smoke trail on the horizon that pointed the way to the now-distant damaged Blackhawk. The Tyrant had no more time to waste on gnats. It had a target to destroy.

* * * * *

"Blackhawk, Blackhawk, this is Echo Team Command! The Tyrant got Echo Escort Three! I say again, it got Echo Escort Three!"

Everyone in the ailing Blackhawk could see for themselves the tall column of black smoke rising from their rear, and had both heard the explosion and felt its shockwave shake their damaged bird. Crew Chief Wilson was now in the back again with the others, and he motioned to the M4 gunner. "Deece, let me know the minute it reappears."

"Yes, sir," Deece responded, getting his assault rifle ready.

Wilson spoke into his flight helmet. "ETA to the nearest support, Echo Command?"

There was a pause, then a response. It was Colonel Counce himself who spoke. "I've detached two more Longbows from the retrieval of the Echo Teams to come to your aid, but they won't get to you before that thing does. I'm sorry."

Chief Wilson nodded. "Yes, sir. We'll do what we can, sir. Blackhawk out."

When the crew chief looked up from his helmet mike, he saw that all three of the survivors who were still physically able - Kevin, Rita, and John - had their weapons out. Kevin cradled the MC-51 he had appropriated from the dead soldier, Rita was holding her hunting rifle, and John was cradling his SPAS-12. Kevin spoke for them all when he said quietly, "We'd like to help, chief, if we can. We're short of ammo, but we'd like to help. This is our fight more than it is yours."

Wilson regarded them for a moment, then nodded. "All right. You, Officer Ryman, and my gunner will each take a primary position at the back. As soon as that thing's in sight again, you two will be our main defense. There's extra ammo in preloaded clips for your MC-51 in that ammo box to your left. Deece, you know where to find your spare ammo." Deece the gunner nodded, then both he and Kevin moved to their assigned positions at the back of the chopper. As they did so, Rita and John moved forward, past the medic and the stretcher-bound Elza, and trading places with Kevin. Rita now found herself beside Wilson, who now spoke to her. "Ma'am, I don't have anything for that long gun of yours. I've got plenty of nine millimeter, but those autopistols of yours," and with that he motioned down to her twin holstered weapons, "won't be much good in this kind of fight."

"I understand, sir." Rita said. "I've still got a few shells left for this rifle, though. I thought I might be able to snipe at it and help you boys keep it busy. This thing has a hell of a kick, you know."

Wilson nodded. "All right. I'll hold you in reserve. You take over whenever one of them has to change out clips."

"Understood, sir." She now moved to the back again, taking up a position where she could get to either side of the chopper behind either Kevin or Deece. She wound up beside Elza and the medic, and she now looked down in the face of the wounded young woman. "Damned if we're not in the thick of it again," she said aloud.

Elza smiled up at her. "Wish ... I could ... help out."

"You've done more than enough already," Rita said. "Too much, in fact. Now you just lie there and enjoy the ride. We'll deal with this thing – okay?"

Wilson now regard the big burly man who was left with him at the front of the helicopter. "Mister, I'm going to save you to last," he said finally. "We'll need that scattergun of yours if we wind up having to repel a boarder."

John nodded. "Yes, suh!" he said, holding his shotgun in a loose approximation of the ready arms position.

Crew Chief Wilson allowed himself a smile, then motioned to Kevin and his gunner. "Deece? Mister Ryman? Pop the doors."

Both doors on the limping Blackhawk came open and slid back. Almost as quickly, the barrels of two fully automatic long guns appeared at the back ends of each opening, pointing back down the path that the wounded helicopter was flying. Wilson now leaned back into the cockpit. "Give it all you got, Lou," he implored.

"Chief, I got it redlined already," the pilot said, not looking away from his controls. Almost three-fifths of his lights now shone red, the clanging whine coming from the engine was even louder than before, and everyone could feel the pronounced shudder that now vibrated throughout the entire craft. "Ay, yi, yi! There's just no more the old girl has left to give. Any more and I'll lose the engine."

"Just do the best you can," Wilson said, then let him be. He brought up his own weapon, then joined the others on his makeshift firing line.

The ailing, shuddering Blackhawk continued to limp through the sky, following the road as it ran through the outer edges of Raccoon City's industrial district. Somewhere up ahead was the city line ... and only a few miles beyond that was the quarantine line. The chopper would never make it that far, but it might make it almost to the edge of city. The pilot had dropped altitude in an effort to increase speed, flying only a few dozen feet off the ground and working what magic he could with the wounded bird beneath his fingers, in order to make it go as fast as possible given its damage. He was coaxing it along right at the limit of what limited capabilities it still had left to give. It was hard to tell their speed save from passing scenery, as that particular instrument on his shot-up panel was one of the ones that had bought the proverbial farm. Even the RPM indicator was fluctuating wildly, but that was more an indication of the bad state the engine was in than anything else. Their achieved speed seemed like a fair clip, whatever it was – yet everyone inside the chopper, civilians included, knew that the speed at which they staggered along was well below the top speed of an undamaged Blackhawk. It would be an easy thing for the Tyrant to catch back up with them again ... and yet ... where was it? It should have caught up with them by now, given how fast it could run and how slow they were moving in comparison, but where was it?

"I don't like this," Kevin said aloud as he scanned his share of the horizon falling away behind them. "Something's wrong."

"Yeah," Wilson responded. "Everyone keep your eyes peeled. Officer Ryman's right. What th' hell's keeping that thing?"

At that point in their flight the limping Blackhawk closed on a isolated Stagla gas station and garage on the right side of the road. All of the civilians knew that it was the last gas station of any kind before they passed the city limits. They were only a half-mile away. Close ... so close now ...

Without warning, the Tyrant stepped out from the garage of the gas station even as the shuddering Blackhawk began to make its pass. It had run around and ahead of them, masking its progress by running well out of the Blackhawk's line of sight and using every piece of cover available. It had used its superior speed to gain the advantage and set up an ambush – and now it sprang it. It was holding a tire rim under one arm, and before anyone in the Blackhawk had time to react it had flung it up and directly at the passing Blackhawk. It flew straight into the path of the main rotor. Its blades were hit near the spindle and the whole helicopter shook violently. With that, the engine failed. The Blackhawk pitched wildly, its still-spinning tail rotor making it whirl about out of control, as it plummeted straight down to the ground. It crashed on the highway just beyond the Stagla station, and the Tyrant stood and watched as the careening wreck skidded down and off the highway and into a nearby hayfield. Bodies, equipment, weapons, ammo, and metal shrapnel from its own remains went flying in all directions as the downed chopper skidded out of control. The screeching, smoking ruin that had been a Blackhawk helicopter did not stop moving until its front end slammed into and broke a small stack of large round bales of hay that were in the field. It fish-tailed around one more time, and then finally came to rest.

The Tyrant had accomplished thefirst part of its mission. Now it wastime to finish the job.

\-------------------------

Chapter 25 - Resolution

The wrecked Blackhawk lay tilted up on its port side in the hayfield some distance away from the highway, having left a long curved skid mark on both the pavement and the hard-packed earth, as it had plowed through the short stubble of the cut hayfield. It had also left an even more wide field of debris and wreckage in its passing that ran almost all the way back to the Stagla station, where it had taken its fatal hit from the Tyrant. Only one badly bent blade remained on the twisted spindle shaft of its shattered main rotor, while the others - or pieces of them - were scattered far and wide across both hayfield and highway. The tail boom had broken off when the Blackhawk had first pancaked on the road, snapping away even as everything and everyone inside, except for Elza and the pilot, were sent flying out like a double fistful of freshly fired bottle rockets. The broken boom had found its way to the other side of the highway, having spun and tumbled off into the parking lot of a cluster of rental storage buildings, and had only stopped moving once it had impaled itself through the cab of a parked Ford pickup. The tail rotor was missing and nowhere to be seen. The bodies of those who had been thrown out of both sides of the crashing Blackhawk were scattered hither and yon in and around the debris field that covered both highway and hayfield. Some were slowly moving, and some were not. Some would never move again.

The fact that the Blackhawk had not caught fire during its crash was later credited to the actions of Lou, its late pilot. He had dumped most of his bird's fuel earlier in an effort to lighten the load and keep her flying, saving only enough to get them to the edge of town and safely down before his crippled engine failed completely. Thus it was that when the Blackhawk had been brought down by the Tyrant, it had crashed with fuel tanks that were mostly empty. What little remained was splattered and scattered when the tanks ruptured during the initial impact on the highway, and so it was that the occupants were granted the mercy of not having died by being burned alive. Another thing Lou had done that the subsequent Army investigation later determined was that he had somehow managed to keep his fatally wounded bird on a fairly even keel as she went down. Had she gone down nose first or rolled over, as was usually the case in many helicopter crashes, then everyone on board would have almost certainly been killed. Yet another thing that had aided in saving lives during the crash was the stout construction of the Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter itself. It was not completely crash-proof, and nothing can ever be, but it had been built to be as crash-resistant as possible. Such a crash in the older Vietnam-era Bell UH-1 Iroquois, or "Huey" per its beloved nickname, would have both broken the back of that bird and killed everyone on board. Being in a helicopter crash is never an ideal thing ... but this one could have wound up being far worse that it was, had it not been for the actions of the late Lou and the stoutness of his newer bird. Even so, it was bad enough – and the resulting scene that would have greeted the eyes of any outside observer was testimony to that.

 

In its last moments, the screeching and sliding wreck that had once been an Army Blackhawk helicopter had plowed nose-first into a collection of large round hay bales located some distance into the hayfield. That had been an unfortunate thing for Lou the pilot, for he had been killed instantly in that head-on impact. The wreck had then bounced off and around the now broken and partly scattered bales of hay, skidding and swinging to starboard as its momentum, having been largely absorbed by the hay bales, finally dispersed and it came to rest. It was during this final swinging slide, however, when the wounded Elza Walker was flung from the helicopter – stretcher and all. Two of the latches that had been holding her stretcher to the floor of the passenger compartment had failed when it had pancaked into the highway, and the remaining two failed from the impact with the stacked bales of hay. Both Elza and her stretcher, for she was still strapped to it, were then catapulted from the wreck by centrifugal force and flung into the hayfield. There was nothing that Elza could do except keep her arms tucked in, pray that the straps around her upper waist and paralyzed legs didn't fail, and turn the unbandaged side of her face into the stretcher fabric to shield it as much as possible. The stretcher began to tumble as soon as one of its pole-like handles hit the ground, and Elza was immediately put through the helicopter-wreck equivalent of a gyrotumbler before she smacked up hard, practically standing on her head, against one of the bales of hay in the field. This last impact both knocked the wind out of her and rendered her almost senseless. She could never after remember either seeing or feeling her stretcher balance almost vertically for a moment, then fall back down against the bale of hay before it slid all the way down to the ground.

As it would be later revealed, Rita had witnessed Elza's wild last flight through the hayfield. She had been dazed by her own tumble through the shallow drainage ditch that delineated the border of the light industrial area on the other side of the highway. That was where she had finally came to rest after being thrown from the helicopter. She had wound up flat on her back with her right leg twisted under her, as skinned and bruised as a six-year-old boy who has just been through the worst schoolyard fight of his life. She had stopped on the upslope of the far side of the ditch, however, and her head was up high enough for her to have witnessed the last few seconds of the Blackhawk crash. It only half-registered in her muddled mind at the time, and it would not be until many months and multiple hypnotherapy sessions later when her unique view of the crash could be recovered to add to the account. For the present, once the sounds of the crash had finished and her head began to clear a bit, she tried to stand up. Her head then cleared immediately, for it was filled with the most violentLy intense pain she had ever felt – shooting up her right leg and rocketing up her spine like a Minuteman missile on full burn. She immediately collapsed back into the ditch with a loud and anguished scream. Her right leg was broken, and she from her own knowledge and experience that it was probably a compound fracture. She also knew that the Tyrant was still out there, somewhere, and would be coming after them posthaste – but she was in no condition now to fight it and she had lost all of her weapons in the crash. For the time being, she remained crumpled in the drainage ditch – whimpering quietly from the pain radiating from her broken leg, and doing her best to gather what little strength was left to her to try again and get out of the ditch.

John saw nothing, heard nothing, and knew nothing else about the final few seconds of the crash or all that happened after. He had been thrown into the hayfield, and had wound up plowing almost headfirst into one of the bales of hay. In later days he would attribute not having been killed to his thick skull and neck, but the fact of the matter was that he had been damn lucky. Even so, the impact was so hard that it knocked him out, and he remained completely out of it until long after the events that immediately followed the crash were concluded. As it would later turn out, though, he had not gotten off as scot-free as he first believed once he finally regained consciousness. He had a broken collarbone, his left shoulder had been dislocated, and he would suffer the lingering effects of severe whiplash for months afterward. That did not count the weeks of surgery required to remove all of the broken-off pieces of hay and straw that had been driven into his head, neck, chest, and shoulders from the impact, nor the months he spent after in the hospital fighting the resulting severe inflammation and infection. For the present, the fact that John was out cold meant that he too could not help to fight the Tyrant that was still out there somewhere, still ready to kill all of them the first chance it got.

Only two of the Blackhawk's crew were still alive. Crew Chief Wilson lay about a dozen yards or so in front of and off to the west side of the decimated pile of now half-ruined large bales of hay that had finally slowed and deflected the sliding Blackhawk in its course across the hayfield. His back was broken, and only his flight helmet had saved his head and neck from being likewise. He couldn't move his arms or head, his chest heaved spasmodically, and he was in terrible pain, but he was still alive. Rodney, his crew medic, was in almost the same shape. He had wound up on the eastern side of the debris field about halfway between the wrecked Blackhawk and the highway. He had multiple broken bones and numerous lacerations suffered from his tumble through the then-flying debris that now formed that side of the debris field. He could barely move, and was likewise in great pain, but he too was still alive. As for Deece, the M4 gunner, well ... he had been the most unfortunate of them all. Both his insides and outsides now decorated a large splatter pattern of blood and gore that streaked across one side of the highway not far from where the wreck's skid mark started. He had been thrown out of the Blackhawk at the point of initial impact and at just the right angle to fly directly into its still-spinning tail rotor. His had been the most gruesome death resulting from the crash. Two of the Blackhawk crew dead, two gravely injured. One survivor crippled, one out cold, and the other previously badly injured one now undoubtedly injured again and knocked almost senseless. The list of those available from the Blackhawk to deal with a Tyrant at large had in the matter of one violent half-minute or so been efficiently and ruthlessly culled to just one person.

Kevin Ryman had come out in the best shape of those thrown from the Blackhawk during the crash. He had been granted just enough time to twist around and turn his uncontrolled fall into a somewhat controlled one. He hit the ground on one shoulder and immediately tried to roll, but his momentum had been too great. He wound up tumbling instead, and only stopped when he too came up short against one of the large round bales of hay. Fortunately, his momentum had been reduced enough by this point so that all it did was knock the wind out of him. He slowly staggered to his feet a dozen seconds or so later, the last echoes of the crash still ringing in his ears. He was as skinned-up, bruised-up, and cut-up from his tumble as any of the others; however, unlike them, he had no broken bones and could still move about – albeit somewhat painfully. Bruised muscles, after all, are not a pleasant thing to experience, even if the damage is mild compared to the injuries that others in the same crash have suffered. The shoulder on which he had taken his tumble hurt like hell, he was still a bit woozy, and it took him a few stumbling steps before he could get even a semblance of his balance back. He then stopped and leaned against the nearest round bale that he could reach, breathing heavily.

Kevin looked across the ruin left behind in the wake of the crashed Blackhawk. He saw twisted metal of various shapes and sizes, a lone tire blown and ribboned on its rim, burned rubber and insulation, smashed instruments, stripped and ripped bundles of wiring, and other such wreckage littering the ground before him. He saw various weapons, scattered ammo, and both the chopper's supplies and their own gear thrown hither and yon amid the wreckage – as if some giant had gathered it all together in a huge salad bowl, tossed it for a while, then flung it out across the hayfield. He followed with his eyes the debris field and the oversized skid mark than ran through the middle of it back to the highway. Kevin was the only human standing amid the debris and carnage. He saw Chief Wilson's body and then the crew medic's, both still breathing but both obviously badly injured. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blue blur at the base of a bale of hay, and he looked to see an unconscious John Kendo lying at its foot. Frantically he began to stumble towards the wrecked Blackhawk, scanning both the hayfield and the wreckage. He finally spotted Elza's stretcher half-protruding from behind the broken stack of hay bales near the wreck. Elza was alive and breathing, and she was even trying to move, but she was obviously badly stunned. Her movements were very slow, and her breathing had become as ragged again as when she had first regained consciousness after being ambushed. From her Kevin's eyes were drawn to the head and right arm of the dead Lou hanging out of what was left of the Blackhawk's cockpit. Kevin now heard a woman's anguished scream, and turned his head just in time to see a skinned-up Rita fall back into the drainage ditch across the road, grabbing at her right leg and grimacing in agony. From there his attention was drawn to the large red trail streaking down the nearby pavement back towards the Stagla station ...

... and that was when he saw it.

The Tyrant was walking up the highway towards them. Its pace was deliberate and measured. It was in no hurry, for it knew its quarry would not – no, could not go anywhere. It now had all the time it needed to kill them and fulfill its mission, for it was on the scene and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command was not. By the time they finally got there, all of the Tyrant's designated targets would be quite dead. Its primary mission fulfilled, it would then play with the SOC's Echo Teams, just as many of its late brothers and sisters had done, until they died or it died. Nothing else would matter once the primary mission objective was completed – and that was now firmly within its grasp. There was no hurry, for there was still plenty of time. For once, the Tyrant could actually enjoy a good kill.

Kevin spotted his MC-51 lying in the debris field about a dozen or so yards away from him. He half-ran, half-staggered over to it and scooped it up without even slowing. He now moved toward the highway and the threat that was coming even closer up it, holding it in a combat carry as he went. The sudden rush of adrenaline helped to both clear his mind and shut out the pain of his own injuries. He knew they must be mild in comparison to those of the others who still lived, given what he had just seen. He also couldn't shake the sound of Rita's anguished scream out of his ears. He had to save them. He had to save her. There was simply no one else. He was the only one left who could.

Kevin came to an abrupt halt when he was in the middle of the highway, then pulled himself up full height and leveled his weapon towards his foe. The Tyrant had stopped in its tracks some distance away and simply stood there, watching him with its emotionless face and its cold, seemingly unblinking eyes. Kevin took in a deep breath, then worked the breach on his MC-51 in order to make sure it had a round chambered. He then shouted a challenge at the Tyrant, trying very hard to think of all of the toughest things he could remember or come up with to yell at it. He didn't want it to know just how scared he was at that moment. He knew that he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of defeating this thing, this ... Tyrant, as Linda had called it and described it to them, before she – NO! He had to beat it. He just had to. He owed it to Rita ... and Elza, God yes ... and John ... and above all, to Sherry and Linda. If anyone else was going to die next, it was going to be him. None of the others in his charge were going to die. No more.

"Hey!!!" Kevin yelled down the highway at his implacable foe. "Have you had enough yet?! Or are you ready to take me on now?! Is that what you really want, Chrome Dome?! Well, here I am! I'm ready for ya!! What'cha waitin' for, big guy?! C'mon!!! What's keepin' ya?! You're not afraid of me, ARE YA?!?!?!"

The Tyrant regarded the lone male human wearing the bloodied and torn remains of an RPD SPF uniform who was now attempting what might be described very loosely as some kind of feeble challenge. It was one of the designated targets, and it was carrying a large-caliber automatic weapon. None of the words it was shouting mattered to the Tyrant, as it considered all such posturing meaningless. It was instead scanning the battered human and assessing its combat potential. Even as the human vainly continued its ranting and blustering, the final readout popped up in the heads-up display portion of the Tyrant's field of vision: Threat Assessment: MINIMAL.

Kevin watched in amazement as a smile now slowly spread across the Tyrant's face ... and he was even more amazed when he heard it laugh at him. It was the kind of low, quiet laugh that could freeze the marrow in the bones of even the bravest person alive. His false bravado hadn't fooled the Tyrant for one moment. It knew what it faced, just as he did. Now a grim smile passed over Kevin's face, too. Fine, then. If the Angel of Death had decided that Kevin Ryman's time was now, well ... at least he would go down fighting, dying to defend his charges, his friends, his ... love. It was always better to live – but if you knew you were about to die, as Kevin was now certain that he did, it was good to know that there were still some things worth dying for.

* * * * *

When Elza finally regained her senses, it was to the sounds of a fierce beating taking place somewhere towards the highway. Still strapped to the stretcher as she was, she could neither see it nor crane her neck around enough to get any kind of look. Slowly, painfully, she used her right hand to loosen and remove the strap around her chest, then reached down and did the same with the strap around her legs. It was sheer agony to do so. She felt her broken ribs moving inside her chest, and knew that whatever small amount of mending had occurred since early that morning had been undone by the helicopter crash. It was a certainty that the tumble she had taken because of that crash had also aggravated her existing injuries, too. Still, a small part of her mind considered for a split-second how extremely fortunate she was not to have any more obviously apparent injuries – say, both arms broken, for example, or winding up dead with a broken neck. Now that she was freed from the stretcher, and ignoring the waves of pain radiating from all over her body but in particular from her left side, she managed to half-roll and half-squirm around enough to see what had been happening behind her ... and her mouth hung open in shock at the horror of what was now unfolding before her one remaining eye.

The Tyrant was playing with Kevin, just as a cat that has caught a small bird or rodent will often play with its food before eating it. The cat will sometimes let up its paw, and at that point its now badly wounded prey will try to limp or scramble away. It never makes it, though – for just as it looks as it will break into the clear, the paw slams back down and pins it again. That same deadly drama was now being acted out on a larger scale, with the Tyrant as the cat and poor Kevin Ryman as the desperate prey. Right now he looked like he had been sixteen rounds boxing in a twelve-round fight with a champion prize fighter, and his foe certainly hadn't pulled any punches. Kevin was half-staggering and half-running towards one of the weapons lying in the debris field – a fragmentation grenade, from the looks of it. Mere seconds before he reached it, however, the Tyrant zoomed over and loomed up in front of him, crossing the distance in mere seconds and blocking Kevin's path to his prize. It then drew back its massively muscled arm and backhanded Kevin some thirty feet or so across the field into the closest bale of hay. Kevin hung for a moment against the side of the bale, and then collapsed into a heap at its base. The Tyrant remained where it was, standing and watching, as it waited for Kevin to get back up. There was a very visible dent in the bale of hay where Kevin's body had been driven into it, and glancing around Elza could see that other bales not far from the two fighters bore similar dents and indentations. She also saw Kevin's MC-51 lying near the highway, bent and twisted like a pretzel. Motion from the bale of hay where Kevin had fallen now caught her attention. Elza now saw Kevin reaching up and clutching at it, using it to pull himself back up to his feet. The right side of his face was badly bruised and the eye there almost swollen shut, and he was also bleeding from a split lip. The left side of his face wasn't in much better shape, although it sported more cuts and bloody scuffs than it did swollen bruises. Despite his facial injuries, however, Kevin somehow managed to force it into a semblance of his trademark wry smile. He spit out a broken tooth, then rocked back up to his feet, settling down into a dazed man's approximation of what might have been a fighting crouch.

"Oh ... oh-kaye ...." Kevin groaned, still trying to smile. "Haddunuff? Wazzumoar? Aaaaaaggghhh ..." He reached up and tried to wipe some of the blood and sweat out of his eyes. "Ah ... ah didenno derewear two ofyeh ... 'Sokeh. I kick ... I kick both yer asses." With that, he began to stumble back towards the Tyrant again.

"Dear God!!" Elza thought desperately. "Someone's GOT to help him!!! He's going to get himself killed!!!" She looked around the hayfield ... and then realized the true hopelessness of their plight. Yet even as she despaired, her eyes happened to fall upon an object lying in front of the smashed stack of broken and half-broken hay bales that had checked the Blackhawk's uncontrolled slide. It had probably been ejected from the helicopter at the same time as had she. Lying where it was, behind the ruined hay bales and some distance away and across from her, it was completely out of sight of the Tyrant. She was not, and she knew that, but she also guessed that the Tyrant would not consider her a legitimate threat – given her current condition. It apparently had not attacked any of the other survivors from the Blackhawk crash. It was having its fun with Kevin instead, since he was the only one of them apparently still on his feet. After it had taken Kevin out, then it would deal with the rest of them. Not if Elza could help it, though, now that she knew of the object at the foot of that stack of hay. With grim determination, she reached out with her right hand ... and began dragging herself, one-armed all the way, across the hayfield toward the object in her sights.

As Elza slowly moved along, pulling herself across the hayfield with her one good arm ... inching her way towards and behind the ruined bales of hay in front of her ... painfully dragging her broken arm, broken ribs, and paralyzed legs along with her ... she chanted a little liturgy she made up on the spot in order to occupy her pain-wracked mind. It wasn't much, and probably would never even rate among the top ten brave things you're supposed to say whenever Death is staring you in the face, but it worked for her. "I ... am ... Elza Walker .... I am ... the daughter ... of ... Daniel ... and ... Maureen ... Walker ... ... and ... I will ... NOT ... die ... today!"

Over and over again, Elza repeated that chant. She forced the pain to keep out – as inch by inch, and with nemesis-like doggedness, she moved ever closer to the goal that she sought – the one lying before those broken bales of hay.

"I ... am ... Elza Walker ... and I ... will NOT ... DIE ... TODAY!!!"

* * * * *

What Elza had spotted at the foot of the ruined bale of hay was an M72A6 Light Antitank Weapon – better known as "the LAW" to both its military users and hardcore military buffs. It was a single-shot tank-busting weapon descended from the famous bazooka of World War II, and her father had both seen and used the original LAW during his tour of duty in Vietnam. The M72A6 had been custom-built for Echo Team Command field use, and could best be described as one of the never-approved prototype M72E5s equipped with the later M72E7's picatinny rail system for options package mounting.

The regular Army had discontinued use of the LAW in the mid-1980s in favor of the Swedish-built AT-4; however, both the original LAW and its tweaked descendants continued to see limited use with both Army Special Forces and select units of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) throughout the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s. Although its standard HDEP-type round was by now too weak to penetrate the Chobham type armor of modern main battle tanks, it was still useful against medium and light tanks, as well as armored persoNnel carriers and light infantry vehicles. It was also one hell of a way to clear a battlefield trench or to bust a typical reinforced battlefield bunker – and that, plus its relative light weight as compared to the AT-4, was why both Army Special Forces and the USMC had requested to be allowed to continue its use on a limited basis. Something so useful in so many ways did not deserve to be discarded solely on the basis of contractual whims – and their support for the LAW would eventually be justified in the 1990s and early 2000s, when the various Middle East combat actions would once again cause it to be employed as a field weapon by regular troops. At this point in time, however, the LAW was still almost exclusively a Special Forces or limited-deployment weapon. The U.S. Army's SOC Echo Teams were ardent supporters of the LAW, and almost always carried at least two of them with every unit and vehicle in their possession whenever they deployed on a mission – often with selected individual Echo Team members carrying one or sometimes two each.

This was the prize that now lay before Elza as she clawed her way single-handed across the relatively short distance between where her stretcher had landed and the ruined bales of hay that hid it from the view of the Tyrant. That crawl seemed to take forever ... but she was so close ... so close now ....

She reached it. Her fingers found it and went around it, pulling it towards her even as the sounds of Kevin's beating continued. Painfully, and with great effort, Elza forced the LAW into the crook of her broken left arm, holding it in place with its still-good hand and fingers. She now looked up at the half-broken bale of hay that loomed before her to one side of the ruined stack. Something that would had been so simple for her to surmount when she was whole was now going to be a formidable obstacle, given her present condition. Luck was still on her side, however, as she spied several loops of bailing twine that remained unbroken, and were still wrapped tightly around the bale. Elza reached out and grabbed at one of them ... snagged it ... pulled herself over to the bale ... and then, very slowly and very painfully, began to pull herself up its side. She would stop now and again to prop herself up and make sure she didn't lose any of her hard-won ground, as well as to gather her rapidly ebbing strength. Then, with another effort, she would shift her grip on the unbroken strand of twine and pull herself up some more. It was hard work, almost too hard given her condition, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming every time she shifted position, but she was still moving upward. A half-foot ... a foot ... two feet ... and eventually, with considerable will and accompanied by almost unbearable pain, she reached the top of the bale.

"I ... will not ... die ... TODAY!"

* * * * *

Once again, Kevin Ryman was sent flying across the hayfield and into one of the large round bales of hay. He hit it and went down ... but this time, he did not get back up. The Tyrant stood still for a while, regarding this new development, then began to slowly walk towards him. What it planned to do once it reached him was fairly obvious. Playtime was over. Dying time had come.

Kevin's head slowly rolled up. He looked at the approaching Tyrant with the one eye he still had that wasn't swollen shut. His vision was blurred and tinged on all sides with a red haze. His whole body was a solid sea of pain, and he felt like he no longer had sufficient strength left to move. All he could do was sit there, propped up in his half-sprawl against the bale of hay behind him, as the Tyrant continued its slow but steady approach. He forced open his mouth and tried to say something appropriate, but words would not come. Nothing came – not even a moan or a gurgle. "So this is it," Kevin thought to himself, as the Tyrant loomed ever closer. "I gave it my best. It just wasn't good enough. I'm sorry, Rita .... I'm so sorry ...."

Suddenly the Tyrant froze in its tracks. Its head swiveled sharply, and it was now looking away from Kevin. There was a red flashing in its heads-up display, and its threat assessment reading of the badly wounded young woman behind the broken hay bale, one had formerly read non-existent, was now strobing in big bold letters the word TERMINAL.

Kevin somehow found the strength to turn his head and see for himself at what the Tyrant was now staring. His jaw dropped in amazement despite his own injuries. There was a female figure in tattered, filthy scrubs who appeared to be leaning against the back of one of the ruined bales of hay near the wrecked helicopter. She sported disheveled blond hair and bloody bandages, with a rather nasty-looking one wrapped around her head and covering her left eye, and she was staring down the Tyrant with the one good eye she had remaining. It was Elza Walker, and she had a darkly malicious grin on her face. That, combined with her general appearance, made her look as if she were the Angel of Death herself. Kevin wondered what in the hell Elza was doing challenging the Tyrant in her condition – and then he saw the metal tube she was holding on her right shoulder, with its front end braced on the remains of the hay bale in front of her and with the one eye she had left lined up with its sight, with her hand on the firing switch and its end pointed squarely at the Tyrant. Kevin immediately recognized it for what it was – and Elza was a crack shot, injured or not. At that range she couldn't miss. Kevin would later remember hearing the words that Elza now hurled vehemently at the Tyrant, and it was the kind of thing he had been trying and failing to say for the past twenty minutes or so. It was only two words, but all of the power still remaining in Elza's battered person went into both of them.

"Sayonara, sucker!"

Elza hit the firing switch. The LAW went off, its HDEP round working exactly as designed, firing its rocket motor and flying straight towards the Tyrant. Elza screamed in agony as she lost her balance from the recoil, falling away from the back of the haystack and tumbling helplessly to the ground. A short distance away across the hayfield, the Tyrant responded by immediately crossing its arms in front of it, as it prepared to execute its preprogrammed anti-missile defense maneuver. This had been developed and tested with some success by Umbrella experts in the later phases of Tyrant development, and they reckoned it had a one-in-three chance of successfully deflecting any modern battlefield smart weapon, such as a Stinger or a TOW missile. It had even been used with limited success against both NATO and Soviet-style rocket-propelled grenades, provided there was time enough to effect the maneuver before the grenade's spin-activated warhead was fully armed. That is why the Tyrant did not even try to get out of the way of the LAW. There simply wasn't enough time, given the distance involved, and it knew it had a fair chance of successfully deflecting the oncoming missile ... if that is what it had been, of course. However, the Tyrant's defense had been developed to deal with complex and sophisticated smart weapons – and the LAW was a very stupid weapon. Boiled down to its essentials, it could only do two things: fly straight to its target, and explode upon contact. The LAW's HDEP round flew straight to its target – the Tyrant. Once it reached it, and it came into contact with the Tyrant's right arm, which was even then in the process of being flung out as it attempted to bat the projectile away, it promptly exploded – taking the Tyrant with it as it blew the both of them into a million tiny pieces.

* * * * *

Kevin had instinctively ducked and covered his head when Elza had fired the LAW at the Tyrant. Now he uncovered his head and looked up. He had been peppered with thousands of little chunks of bloody goo, burnt rubber, and blasted leather – but he was still alive. The Tyrant was not. What little was left of it, and it was very little indeed, had been sprayed for dozens of feet in every direction. Kevin now looked around toward the ruined bale of hay from where Elza had fired the LAW. She was partially visible off to one side, breathing heavily, probably trying to deal with the intense pain she was still feeling from that final tumble she had taken off of the broken hay bale. Some primal instinct in her must have told her she was being watched, for she slowly turned her head and looked back at Kevin. Her face flickered, and then with an effort Elza managed to make it settled into a weak smile. She slowly raised her right arm almost a foot or so, managed to flash Kevin a quick thumbs-up sign, and then the arm quickly fell back down. Kevin grinned back, and with some effort flashed his own thumbs-up in reply.

Another movement off to one side now caught the attention of both of them, and they saw Rita slowly crawling out of the drainage ditch on the far side of the road, favoring her broken leg. She had wisely laid low once the fight had begun, reasoning that the best thing she could do was stay out of the way. She had not expected Elza to get involved, but she was glad as all out that she had – and proud of her, too. Damn proud. Elza looked over at Rita, and then once again forced herself to flash Rita a thumbs-up sign, before her arm fell back down and her head rolled to one side, eyelid fluttering shut as it did. She was tired, so tired. She hurt like hell, and she simply couldn't fight it any longer. Not even her iron will could stop it this time. Elza passed out.

Kevin somehow found a previously untapped reservoir of strength within himself at the sight of Rita still alive. He staggered to his feet again and stumbled over to the highway, catching Rita in his arms even as she tried to stand up again. Together, with Kevin cradling Rita, they both sank down to the bloodied pavement.

"No ... more ... of that ...." Kevin said slowly, his breath coming out in gasps.

"Yes ... sir ...." Rita answered through gritted teeth, obviously fighting the pain from her broken leg. "How's ... Elza?"

"Just ... passed out ... I think ...." Kevin said. "She's ... been through hell."

"So ... have we ...." Rita replied. She tried to smile, but grimaced again as a new wave of pain shot up from her leg. She fought it back down, and managed that smile after all. "You ... look like shit ...."

Kevin again managed a semblance of his old wry smile. "I ... love you ... too."

"Oh, Kevin ...!" Rita said, as her arms went around him.

"At least ... we're alive ...." Kevin added, as he tried his best to gently hug her.

"Owww!" Rita exclaimed, then managed a stifled laugh. "Not ... so tight!" She now looked up at him. "Hey, boss? Is it over?"

Kevin was about to answer when he happened to cast his eyes back down the highway towards Raccoon City. He suddenly stiffened. Rita felt him stiffen and turned to look. A fair-sized group of zombies was moving up the highway and along the drainage ditches and open areas on both sides. They were moving towards both the wreck of the Blackhawk and the pair of humans on the highway at a typical zombie's shuffling gait. They were of the normal variety, and could have easily been taken out ... save that neither Kevin nor Rita were armed, they weren't in any condition to take out anything, and they weren't in any condition to escape, either. Not this time.

"Yeah," Kevin said grimly. "I think it's finally over."

"Oh, God," Rita said, beginning to cry, as she buried her head in Kevin's chest.

It was then that they both heard it, just as they had in the ruined truckyard not all that long ago. Both Kevin and Rita looked at each other, and then turned their heads towards the east, in the direction from where the sound was coming. It was the all-too-welcome sound of whirring rotors, and they now saw a full flight of different kinds of helicopters rapidly closing on their position. They saw several helicopter gunships, more Blackhawks with even more soldiers inside, and a big Chinook flying behind the others with Red Cross badges painted on its sides and nose. Rita clutched at Kevin and he back, tears streaming from their eyes as the helicopters rapidly approached, pouring on the coal in order to reach them before the oncoming wave of zombies reached them first.

Yes ... it was over. It was finally over.

* * * * *

They came from the direction of the oncoming night: three Apache Longbows, two MD500 Scout Defenders, four Blackhawks full of urban camo, and a National Guard Chinook with Red Cross markings that had on board both its full medical crew and an extra dozen or so Guardsmen volunteer helpers from the quarantine line – and that was not all. Two A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets with full weapons loadouts from the nearby Air National Guard base screamed by overhead as they zoomed past the flight of helicopters, then banked and winged towards the northwest, flying into the sunset. Shortly thereafter, an AC-130 Spectre gunship also arrived and promptly took up station, constantly circling the area of the crash. Colonel Counce was not fucking around this time, and he had pulled every string his authority as a SOC field commander granted him – and then some. Intel said that Umbrella had dispatched two more T-carriers to the location of the downed Blackhawk, and that they were already enroute. Counce was going to make damn sure that a repeat of the Blackhawk crash didn't happen again. He was no idiot, so he had already sorted out operational organization and mission parameters for the new extraction effort long before a single 'chopper of the new flight took to the air. He and his people might have been surprised the first time – but it definitely wasn't going to happen a second.

The two Scout Defenders immediately split up and went after the wave of zombies that had appeared even as the airborne flotilla had come within sight of the wreck, approaching from both down the highway and across the hayfield. They sliced them to ribbons with their 7.62mm M134 miniguns, with the Apaches providing occasional clean-up support as requested. Chasing zombies was not the primary mission of the Apaches, however. Colonel Counce had them there in case another Tyrant decided to show up and crash his party. A lone Tyrant might have taken out one Apache, but Counce was hoping it couldn't take out three. As for the Spectre gunship, that was his ace in the hole. It flew too high for any Tyrant to jump and reach, as the one had done to the Apache Longbow earlier, and its onboard weaponry could destroy even a Tyrant from a distance.

All four Blackhawks landed as close to their downed brother as the surroundings permitted. All four of them immediately disgorged SOC soldiers in full combat kit and harness with full weaponry. Well over half of them were survivors of the multiple Echo Teams that had been operating within Raccoon City itself for the past two days, while others were from reserve units that Colonel Counce had ordered in for this special occasion. As soon as the wheels of all four Blackhawks touched down, the Echo Teams were out and running across the hayfield, deploying in a defensive perimeter around the crash. Only when that was in place and the LZ secured was the call given for "Big Bird," as they had code-named the National Guard Chinook, to come in for a landing. And while their own organization might not have been as tight, and while they lacked both the highly specialized training and combat experience of the members of Echo Team Command whom they were now assisting, nevertheless both the regular and medically trained Guardsmen aboard the Chinook did their best. As soon as the back ramp went down they were out and rushing to their charges with stretchers and medical gear, with both an Echo Team member and a Echo Team field medic there to assist, and the survivors from the Blackhawk crash were treated on the field as well as could have been done even by the most elite of the U.S. military's various field combat units.

Colonel James Alfred Counce, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Echo Team Division – a full bird colonel who had flown in with his own people and had taken personal command of the situation - had just finished surveying the scene and was now walking towards the back of the Chinook. RPD SPF officer Kevin Ryman was there, sitting off to one side of the ramp having his wounds treated by a Guardsman medic, while a female Echo Team lieutenant with dark black hair in a ponytail hovered nearby, her assault rifle in her hands. Both Rita and John had already been moved into the Chinook – but it was taking some time to stabilize and ready the other crash survivors before they too could be carried aboard, due to their more serious injuries. The Echo Team medic who had been assigned to Kevin - a gruff looking ex-biker by the name of Morris - had given him a once-over and then promptly turned him over to his fellow Guardsman medic. Morris had then moved further into the hayfield to assist those helping the more critically injured. The woman near Kevin with the unslung rifle was Lieutenant Caroline Floyd. She was one of the few Echo Team officers on the scene other than Counce himself, but she had only nodded as the colonel approached. She had not saluted. Such frivolities had no place in a combat zone, and besides – saluting would have required her to remove one hand from her rifle, and that could be fatal in this kind of situation. She knew Colonel Counce understood – so instead, she had only nodded in respect and remained focused on her immediate task. That was to protect one of only two still-living RPD officers of which they knew – not to mention the special item that now sat beside him on the landing ramp. So she nodded as Colonel Counce approached, and he nodded back in kind. That was salute enough for both of them.

"Lieutenant Floyd, Officer Ryman," Counce said as he stopped in front of them. He looked at the woman soldier first. "I heard what happened to Dee-Ay, Willow."

"Yes, sir." The woman's face remained set and expressionless.

Counce grunted and shook his head. "Hellua soldier, even if he was ... different." Floyd looked down but said nothing. The colonel paused, then continued. "Bad business. Damn bad business ... and one of those things almost got this bunch, too." Now he looked at Kevin. "How did you manage to destroy it?"

Kevin looked up, his battered face testament to the fight that he had just been through. "I didn't, sir," he said honestly. He pointed beyond Counce, and both his and Willow's eyes followed Kevin's direction to rest on a badly wounded young woman in bloody bandages, with blond hair and dressed in scrubs that were almost as in bad a shape as her many bandages, who was even then being gently transferred to a stretcher by multiple medics. "She did."

Both of Counce's eyebrows went up, and so did one of Willow's. "She did?" Counce said. "Like that?"

"Yeah," Kevin said flatly. "Like that. Caught it by surprise and blew it up with a LAW that had been flung out of the chopper near her. She somehow managed to get into position, aim it, and fire the LAW while that Tyrant thing was beating the shit out of me. Don't ask me how she did it in the shape that she's in – but she did."

Counce nodded. Willow whistled. "That girl's got balls of steel," she said admiringly.

"Cannonball size," Kevin agreed. "She's been like that all the way through this little adventure. That reminds me. Elza Walker is the reason why I'm here, and so are the others. She was charged with bringing this out so you guys could get it." With that, Kevin reached beside him and picked up a well-worn accordion folder full of documents and photos, as well as containing the M-O disc he had retrieved from the Underground Lab. He continued to talk as he picked it up and turned back around. "Right now she's in no shape to finish the job she started, but I don't think she'd mind if I do it for her." He now offered the accordion folder to the colonel. "I believe this is what all this hub-bub was about, bub? I mean, sir?"

A still-amazed Colonel Counce took the accordion folder from Kevin. "Thank you," he said quietly.

"Not at all," Kevin replied, and then flashed his trademark wry smile. "Just doin' my job. And don't thank me – thank her. Because of that remarkable young woman over there, Umbrella's going down for good."

* * * * *

Elza would not be able to remember much of anything that happened over the next month or so. Almost everything, from the time she was airlifted out of Raccoon City until she finally came to her senses in a bed in some unknown hospital was and would always be a hazy blur of images. She remembered coming briefly to consciousness inside the big Chinook as it flew away from the eastern edge of Raccoon City and headed towards Echo Base, the Army SOC command post located just a few miles beyond the quarantine line. She remembered the soft whump-whump-whump of those big double rotors spinning overhead, the sight of the other wounded survivors of the Blackhawk crash riding in that big bird with her, and the occasional glimpse of Kevin seated next to the stretcher-bound Rita, her right leg in a field cast, and Kevin holding Rita's hand while she cried her heart out. Elza knew why she was crying, and it wasn't from the pain of her broken leg. Rita was crying for her, Elza Walker ... and for Linda ... and for little lost Sherry ... and for the two poor men who had died on the Blackhawk crew ... and for everyone back at the RPD ... and for all of those who had fallen victim to the Outbreak. It was both sad and comforting in its own way. Rita had such a big heart, Elza had remembered thinking. Kevin couldn't have been a more lucky man.

The mostly muddled memories of her final helicopter flight out of Raccoon City now faded into ones of examinations and operations, of hospital rooms and hallways, of being wheeled about from one place to another, and all in the kind of dreamy, half-hallucinogenic haze of being halfway under – which she had probably been, whenever she wasn't completely zonked out from whatever it was that they had been giving her for the pain. Most of the faces were covered by surgical masks, but there were a few now and again that weren't, or a few masked faces whose voices she thought she recognized. Her mother Maureen was there now and again, and so was her college academic advisor, Dr. Hamilton. How strange ... but no, he was a top-notch surgeon, and he too must have survived the Outbreak. That might have made him the closest thing to an authority on Outbreak cases available, and that meant ... no! No, she couldn't be infected – at least not anymore. Otherwise she would have turned long ago. Maybe she had. Maybe this was all a dream, the last few seconds of sanity left to her before she left her mind behind, and fell victim to the eternal hunger that wanted so badly to claim her. But no ... she had survived. She knew it. She willed herself to grasp as much reality out of the surreal scenery flowing by her as she could. She recognized a few more faces. Kevin, Rita, John – yes ... all of them had made it, save Sherry ... poor Sherry .... All of them seemed to be worried about her, and wondering if she was going to make it or not. And then there was Jill Valentine – God, from where had she come? No, wait .... the woman in the miniskirt! So she too was a survivor of Raccoon City. And then there was the skinny young man she had never seen before, with hair parted kinda like Kevin's and the little girl who came with him – SHERRY!!! Elza wanted to scream for joy, to cry out her relief at having the burden of that particular agony lifted from her, but the image slid away almost as soon as she tried to grab and hang on to it. It slid away into more gurney rides lying flat on her back watching the ceiling lights flash by, more operating room lights flaring in her face and then fading to black as the anesthetics took hold, more half familar or half-remembered faces sliding past again and again in the fantastic panoply that seemed to forever scroll past her one remaining eye. She lost all track of time, and eventually could do little more but seek peace and solace in the darkness of sleep and rest.

There came a day when Elza finally opened her lone remaining eye and found her senses to be back to normal. She was lying in a typical hospital bed in a typical hospital room – exactly where, she did not know. There were flowers and get-well cards and other presents lining the tables and shelves along one wall and arranged neatly on the floor before them. These were located not far from a needlepoint in a frame hanging on the wall, into which somebody had stitched the words welcome to your home from home. She smiled inwardly at the significance of that particular statement, and then turned to look at the person who was seated beside her bed. It was a woman. Her head was resting on her arms on the side of the bed itself and her eyes closed in slumber, but it was unmistakably her mother, Maureen Walker. Elza now looked at herself. There was a hard cast on her left arm that covered it from armpit to wrist, and wrinkles in the blanket over her betrayed the presence of either heavy wrappings or oversized bandages around her chest and left leg. She could also feel assorted bandages on the right side of her body, and she knew that most of them were there to deal with the injuries she had received during the Blackhawk crash. She noted that somebody had covered her completely with the bedsheets, and they had been pulled tightly under both of her armpits. She lifted the edge with her right hand and peeked underneath. She was wearing nothing but a standard short hospital gown – and Elza knew her mother had probably covered her up because of that.

Even fully conscious, Elza had no sensation in either of her legs. She couldn't see out of her left eye, either – but she already knew the reason why in both cases. She carefully reached up towards her face with her right hand, and it eventually came into contact with an eyepatch over her left eye socket. There were bandages around the upper and lower edges of her eye socket, too – and it hurt like all out whenever she pressed too hard on them. Elza slowly lowered her hand back to her side again. She remembered she had lost both her eye and the use of her legs in the attack by that thing in the warehouse. That was also how her left arm and ribs had been broken, too. Both of those would eventually heal in time. It looked like they had already been doing so, now that they had been given proper care and treatment and allowing for however much time had passed since – just how much time had passed, Elza wondered? She didn't have a clue. Not that it mattered insofar as her permanent injuries went. She would never recover her full sight nor the use of her legs, and that was that. It was going to be a challenge learning to live without them – but then again, she always liked having a good challenge.

Her self-examination done, Elza now reached out with her right hand and placed it lightly on her mother. The older woman stirred. "Mama?" Elza said.

Maureen Walker looked up – and her eyes lit with joy when she saw her daughter Elza was awake and smiling back at her. She had her right hand up, and Maureen quickly clasped it with both of her own. "Oh, baby!" she cried, the tears beginning to flow. "I'm so glad you're up now!"

Elza gripped her mother's hands firmly with her own. "So am I," she said, then stopped. She furrowed her brow, then added in amazement, "I can talk normally now."

Maureen nodded. "They had to operate, Elza," she said, sniffling a bit as she talked. "Your brain had swelled from when that monster busted you in the head, and Dr. Hamilton said it was putting pressure on your speech centers. That's why you could hardly talk before they brought you in. But they operated, and he said it went well, and now you're all fine again."

"Almost," Elza said, and a sad smile crossed her face. "Some of my injuries will never heal."

"Oh, baby," Maureen said. "I'm so sorry."

Elza shook her head. "Don't be, Mama. I did what I had to do. There was a price to pay for that, and I've paid it, but I did it – and I'm still alive." And with that, she squeezed her mother's hands again.

Maureen tried to laugh, but it came out more of a choked sob. "You sound just like your Dad."

"Where is he?" Elza asked.

Maureen looked her daughter in the eye. She was fighting to hold back her tears, and she was losing. "He ... your Dad ... he didn't make it."

"Oh, Mama ..."

Maureen choked back another sob. "He died protecting me! When the zombies overran the farm, he put me down in the storm cellar and had me bar and lock the door from the inside. After that ... well, you know your Dad. He gave 'em hell."

Now Elza's eyes were moist. "I'll bet he did," she said, trying to smile.

Maureen held up a paper napkin and tried to wipe away her tears. "He was already dead by the time the Army showed up. The zombies – they had torn him apart. But they found lots of bodies of zombies he had shot, or burned, and they think he was clawing, kicking, punching, and even biting them back at the end."

Elza squeezed her mom's hands again. "I wouldn't expect any less from Dad. He was a soldier once. He died like a soldier, protecting you. I don't think he would have wanted to die any other way, save in his sleep – and he didn't get the chance to do that. Protecting you was the way he chose to go."

"I know ...." Maureen sobbed. "But when I heard you were still alive, and the Army had found you in Raccoon City, well – I was so happy ...." And with that, she could no longer hold back her tears.

Elza let her mother cry herself out. She just laid there, holding her mother's hands, squeezing them reassuringly now and again, or playing her thumb across the back of one of her mother's clasped hands as if it were a comforting arm on her shoulder. Her own tears flowed too, but she did not cry or sob. She was beyond that now.

It was a long while before her mother's crying slowed. She lifted up a tear-streaked face to look at Elza. "Randy survived, too, you know."

"He did?" Elza said excitedly, despite her own tears.

"Yeah," Maureen said. "You remember your brother went to spend the night with your cousin Hank over at Aunt Polly's? They wound up being just outside the quarrantine line."

Elza managed a chuckle. "Randy always was the lucky one in the family."

Now her mother looked down. "You know they got the Redfields, don't you?" she murmured sadly.

"No," Elza said, genuinely surprised.

"Not Chris and Claire, of course. Both of them were out of town when this whole thing started – but their farm was closer to town than ours. Dad heard the commotion from over at their place, and that's what gave him enough warning to put me in the storm cellar." She smiled sadly. "At least Chris and Claire survived, although they're orphans now. Adult orphans." With that, she actually managed a laugh.

Elza laughed too, although her tears continued to flow. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mama. Uncle Jack ... Aunt Krista ... they were such good people."

Maureen suddenly smiled. "Did you know Claire came back during the Outbreak?"

A genuinely surprised Elza shook her head. "No ...." she said. "That's news to me."

"That little Birkin girl told me about it," Maureen said. "It seems she somehow hooked up with Claire after she was with you, and apparently after she thought you had been killed."

"Sherry?!!" Elza exclaimed. "Where is she, Mom?! And where's Claire?!?!"

Maureen was now beaming. "She's all right – and I didn't get to see Claire. She apparently took off right after she escaped Raccoon City, still looking for her brother Chris. But Sherry and that nice policeman that was with them - ummm, Kennedy's his name, Leon Kennedy - they got picked up by the government and whisked away to safety as soon as they knew where they were. They said Sherry didn't remember you at first, but after a couple of weeks with those government people she started to remember all kinds of stuff that happened to her during the Outbreak that she had forgotten. That's when she remembered you, and then she was desperate to find out what happened to you. Mr. Kennedy said it was traumatic amnesia, or something like that. Her seeing what happened to you was just so horrible that her mind shut it out, until whatever it was the government did to her made her remember. Anyway, they came down about a week ago with a couple of bodyguards, while you were still recovering from all those operations. They said they'd be back once you woke up, and were feeling better." Maureen's voice now took on a bit of a confidential tone as she leaned a little closer to her daughter. "Mr. Kennedy was allowed to tell me that something happened to Sherry while she was with Claire. He said she got infected by a different kind of virus, not the T-virus, and that's why the government is keeping such a close eye on her. She's all better, though – apparently Claire and Mr. Kennedy found an antidote or something for her. He's such a nice young man. I also got to visit with Sherry when she was here with him, and she seems to be all right. She also very much wants to see you again."

Elza let go of her mother's hands and let her head fall back on the pillow. "Well I'll be ...." she said aloud. "Claire and I must have just missed each other."

"That's what that Valentine woman said, too." Maureen noted.

Elza looked at her mother. "Jill Valentine? Her, too?"

Maureen nodded. "She was in here to see you just the other day. You were still out of it, so I visited with her for a bit. A very nice woman – and very professional, too. By the way, she joked that she seems to remember some girl in a red-and-white firesuit hauling ass past her on a motorcycle while she was being chased by a pack of zombies. She doesn't blame you for not stopping, though – especially after your friends told her everything that happened with you guys."

"I'll bet she's got her own incredible Outbreak adventure to tell," Elza said, smiling.

"That she does," Maureen said. Her eyes had dried by now, and she was wiping her face with another paper napkin from the nearby wheeled bed tray. "Oh, my makeup is such a mess now. I need to go get my purse and fix it."

"It's all right, Mom," Elza said. "I don't think anybody's going to care." She looked around at the room, then back at her mother. "How long have I been out of it, anyway?"

"Just over a month, hon," Maureen replied.

"A month?" Elza exclaimed. "Good God. A month ... it seems I've got a lot of catching up to do."

Just then there was a knock at the door. "Come on in!" Elza called out, in a voice that was surprisingly strong even to her ears.

The door to her room opened, and in stepped a very familiar figure to Elza. It was Dr. George Hamilton, her academic advisor from Raccoon University. He was almost as Elza remembered him - good looking for his age but rather staid and laid-back in demeanor. He was wearing dress slacks and dress shoes, and had on a shirt and tie under his long doctor's coat. With him came an attractive blond woman in a conservative dress suit, also wearing a short lab coat, who looked to be about Kevin's age – early to mid-twenties or so. "Hello, Elza," Dr. Hamilton said, as both he and the young woman approached the bed. Maureen promptly stood up and offered the young woman her chair, but she motioned for Maureen to sit back down. "One of the nurses called me from the station when they saw you were awake," Dr. Hamilton said, as he and the young woman took a place beside Maureen's chair. "It's good to see you awake at last."

"I'm glad to be awake, sir," she replied. She glanced up at the camera in one corner of her room. "I hope those are female nurses out there and not male ones, or I shall have to file a complaint with your boss."

"And I see your speech patterns have returned to normal, too," Dr. Hamilton said with a smile, pulling out a notepad and pen and writing something down. "Excellent. I shall have to inform Dr. Thomas of the success of his handiwork." He finished writing, and put both notepad and pen back into his inner jacket pocket. "I requested your case once I found out you were among the survivors. You see, I was drafted to help with the survivors as soon as the Army found out who I was." He then motioned towards the young woman beside him. "Oh, Elza? I don't believe you've met my good friend and companion as of late, Miss Cindy Lennox. Cindy, this is one of my former students at the university, Elza Walker."

"Pleased to meet you," Elza said, nodding her head.

"My pleasure," Cindy said in a somewhat husky voice that simply sang with sweetness. "George has told me a lot about you, and it seems you had as much fun as did we getting out of Raccoon City."

Dr. Hamilton nodded. "I was in the bar where Cindy worked when the Outbreak went down. We escaped together, and ... we drew together as a result." He smiled. "Cindy is an amateur herbalist, and a very good one at that. Everyone has been so short-staffed, what with dealing with all of the Outbreak survivors, that the authorities have allowed her to help us out as best she can. I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on her, making sure she doesn't do anything that isn't in keeping with standard medical practice; however," and with that he gave Cindy a smile, "I've learned she generally knows what she's doing. I trust her."

"And I've learned just how good a doctor George is," Cindy said, flashing a smile that seemed to dance with inner delight.

Elza grinned herself. "Well, that's two good things to come out of the Outbreak. As I've been out of it for quite a while, it seems, I presume you two have already found out about Kevin and Rita?"

Cindy nodded, continuing to smile as she did. "A perfect match, those two. Officer Ryman needed straightening out, and it sounds like he's found just the woman to do it. Did you know he's having to wait on her hand and foot, with her broken leg and all? And he's not complaining about it, either. What a change for the former Mr. Smooth!" At that everyone laughed, even Maureen – for she had been given the chance to meet with all of Elza's fellow survivors while her daughter was recovering from her injuries.

Elza's brow suddenly furrowed. "Where's John?" she asked.

"He'll be along shortly, along with Officer Ryman and Officer Burnside," Dr. Hamilton said. "They're going back over their testimony with the government regarding those RPD files on Umbrella you recovered, Elza. They say there's enough in there to take Umbrella down for good – and so do Officers Kennedy and Valentine, too. In the meantime, besides checking on you, I wanted to come in here and consult with you on another matter."

"Oh?" Elza said.

Dr. Hamilton nodded. "I wanted to talk to you about possible reconstructive surgery for the left side of your face. It would be a simple—"

Elza cut him off, shaking her head. "No, Dr. Hamilton, but thank you all the same. I'll be fine just as I am."

Dr. Hamilton and Cindy looked at each other. Maureen looked up at them, then over at Elza. Her worry was evident on her face. "Elza, dear, if Dr. Hamilton says—"

"No, Mom. I mean it. No reconstructive surgery. I'll be all right. Thanks, but no thanks."

Both Cindy and Maureen looked perplexed. Dr. Hamilton looked confused. "May I ask why, Elza?" he finally asked.

Elza nodded. "Have you ever read Matsumoto, Dr. Hamilton?"

Dr. Hamilton furrowed his brow. "Which one, Elza? There's more than one, you know."

"Leiji."

A smile crossed the doctor's face. "Aahhh. As a matter of fact, yes I have – believe it or not."

"Then you know what I'm talking about?"

Dr. Hamilton nodded. "I believe I do. The philosophy of scars."

Elza nodded in reply. "I can't remember the exact quote, but I remember one of his characters saying in one of his books something to the effect of, 'I don't want to lose my scars. They're part of who I am, and they help me remember what happened to me and why. If I lose them, I won't be the same person.' You know what I mean?"

"Queen Emeraldas," Dr. Hamilton said, smiling. "A fair paraphrase, I might add."

Elza smiled. "Here's the thing, Doctor – and Miss Lennox, and you too, Mama. Every time people look at me from now on, the way I am now, they're going to see Raccoon City. They'll have no choice but to be reminded of what happened there, and why, and what it did. Even twenty, thirty years from now, when all of this is old news, the mere sight of me will still remind them. And I don't want to forget it myself, either. Not in a brooding, vengeful sort of way, but just as a constant reminder of what was, and what could very well happen again if we let it. If I were to take that surgery, and fix my face so that it looked normal again, it would be so easy for people and also me to try and forget that it all happened." She sighed deeply. "No one should ever forget that horror, Dr. Hamilton. You and Miss Lennox lived through that, same as I did. You know what I'm talking about. No one needs to forget."

All was quiet in the room until Dr. Hamilton spoke. "Unnecessary, some might say, from the current public perspective ... but the event is still fresh. Yes ... I see. Well, all I can say is that I respect your decision, Elza, and understand perfectly why you've made this choice. I will honor it as best I can, and I will let all of the other Raccoon City survivors know, too." He shook his head. "A living symbol of Raccoon City. Incredible." He looked down for a moment, then at Cindy, then back at Elza and Maureen. "Well, I guess we'd better go. Your friends will be here soon, Elza, and I suspect they will want to – how do you say it? Talk your ears off?" Cindy smiled and let out a faint giggle, and Dr. Hamilton put his arm around her and gently hugged her. He then looked back at Elza. "You take care, Miss Walker. I'll be seeing you again."

"Thank you, Dr. Hamilton," Elza said. "And thank you for introducing me to Cindy." She looked directly at the young woman. "All I can say is the doctor seems to have found his perfect match with you."

Cindy actually blushed. "Why, thank you," she said. "That's so sweet."

The two excused themselves, and both Elza and Maureen Walker were left alone again in the hospital room. After a few minutes, Maureen looked slyly at her daughter. "You look like a pirate with that patch over your eye, you know," she said.

"Queen Emeraldas was a pirate," Elza promptly shot back. "A space pirate. But she didn't have the eyepatch. That belonged to her friend, Captain Harlock."

Maureen shook her head. "Who was this Leiji Matsumoto, anyway?"

Elza grinned. "A very wise man, Mom ... and a man who wrote and drew comic books for a living."

Maureen Walker shook her head, laughing softly. "Oh, Elza, Elza, Elza ...."

* * * * *

Elza Walker never walked again.

There are many who would have reacted badly to that. Many would have taken the old Linda's path and gladly stepped into the role of professional victim. Some might have even despaired enough to be driven to suicide. Not Elza. She was never that kind of person. "Like the saying goes," she told Rita the day she and Kevin paid her a visit. "When life serves you lemons, make lemonade." She was not about to let little things like not being able to walk or now having only one eye stop her. She did not look at these as limitations to endure, but rather as challenges to be met and obstacles to be overcome. If life was going to limit her in this way, then she would find another way to live. As had Maria in The Sound of Music, she would look for the open window. That was all there was to it. So she couldn't live a normal life with only half a body to live it with? Fine. She decided to instead go in the direction to which Ozwell Spencer himself had pointed her before this whole Outbreak nightmare started. She would develop her mind.

As it turned out, at least one of her friends had already been thinking along the same lines. Even as Elza was recovering, Dr. Hamilton had already been in contact with a number of universities and colleges in the immediate area. He had also taken the liberty of telling them about Elza and her unique situation, as well as something about the kind of young woman that he was championing. By the time he finally shared with Elza about what he was doing, almost every one of them had willingly agreed to honor her now-defunct full scholarship to Raccoon University. She had picked the best of them, based on Dr. Hamilton's own recommendation, and then promptly enrolled. She worked even harder at her studies than she had before she was crippled, and earned her bachelor's in record time ... and then her masters ... and then eventually her doctorate. Along the way, she also picked up two more master's degrees, two bachelor's, and an associate's degree to boot. Her main degree, however, the one for which she eventually earned her doctorate, was in biochemistry. That had been only a single required course of her original Umbrella scholarship. Elza had decided to use her newly developed mental talents in order to help prevent another Raccoon City from happening – not to mention the new problem of global bioterrorism that Umbrella's efforts had spawned. She pursued her new life's path with all of the zeal and determination with which she had chased after her old pastimes and dreams. This surprised no one who knew her, or no one who came to know her in her new life, for Elza Walker was and always would be both a remarkable and formidable woman. However, before that particular chapter of her new life began, there was one more act to play out with regards to Elza's adventures in Raccoon City during the Outbreak. That was when the Umbrella Corporation was finally put on trial for all the crimes it had committed – and what many would later acknowledge as the high point of the trial came on the day when Elizabeth Ann Walker was scheduled to testify as a witness for the prosecution.

Umbrella's chief defense attorney shook his head. "No further questions, your honor."

"Thank you, Miss Suzuki," the judge said, nodding at the young Oriental woman in the witness box. "That will be all." She bowed her head slightly in respectful reply, then rose and went back to her seat in the courtroom gallery.

It was now they key week for the prosecution in the public trial of United States vs. Umbrella, Inc. This was the week when the government attorneys were bringing out their biggest guns – their chief evidence, along with all of their key witnesses who were either tied to it or could put it in its proper perspective. Key to that evidence was all the data that had been gathered by the late RPD assistant chief Robert Clemons and his surviving friends among RPD STARS at the time. If Umbrella had gotten its way, as it had tried so hard to do during the Outbreak, then that evidence would have never made it out of Raccoon City. The fact that it did had a lot to do with the remarkable young woman who was next in line as a prosecution witness.

Umbrella's chief defense attorney took his seat at the defense table, along with his fellow attorneys and company representatives. Many of the latter had been charged with crimes in the government's case against Umbrella, and chief among their number was none other than Ozwell E. Spencer himself, Umbrella's chief executive officer. He had seemingly paid only casual attention to the proceedings, putting on the air of a powerful man who was being dragged down to a level that was clearly beneath him and where he did not deserve to be. Most of those who packed the courtroom's gallery might have said differently, though. Most of them were survivors from Raccoon City.

The government's chief prosecutor now rose from his table and approached the bench. He looked at the judge as he called his next witness. "The prosecution would like to call Elza Walker to the stand."

"Objection!" The Umbrella defense attorney had stood bolt upright in his chair once Elza's name was announced. Spencer seemed to hardly notice him, but there were a few who caught the light that suddenly blazed in his eyes. "Prosecution is grandstanding," the attorney continued, "playing to the sympathy of both the public and this court. Miss Walker's physical condition is well known to all of us. Prosecution may be using it to curry favor and psychologically impact any creditable defense of my client."

An angry murmur began in the courtroom. The judge banged his gavel. "Order!" he cried. When it did not immediately subside, he banged it again. "I say order!" The murmurings finally went away, although the angry looks and glares at the defense table did not. The judge now looked at the chief prosecutor. "Is this true, prosecutor?"

"No, it is not," the chief prosecutor replied. His voice was calm but his tone was cold, and the anger in his eyes was evident. "Prosecution acknowledges that Miss Walker's physical condition is less than perfect. However, all of us here in this courtroom, and those following this trial, know how that came about. The tale of the incredible escape of Miss Walker and her companions from Raccoon City is now a matter of public record. As are ..." and with this he turned and looked directly at the defense bench, "... the steps that were taken by the defendants to ensure that they never made it out alive with what they were carrying with them."

"Speculation!" the chief defense attorney cried. "Objection! Prosecution is slandering my client!"

"An interesting choice of words, counselor," the prosecutor noted. "Slander. Not libel. I will let the court and those watching judge the difference between those two. Even so, your honor, is it not a fundamental part of our legal system for the accused to face his accuser? Well," and now he pointed directly at Spencer, "there sits the accused. And I want to bring in one of his chief accusers. Will this court deny him that right?"

The chief defense attorney looked frantic. After a pause, he spoke. "Defense declines to claim that right at this time," he said, his voice edged with uncertainty.

It was a mistake, and he knew it as soon as the words cleared his mouth. Beside him, Spencer rolled his eyes, then lifted a hand to his head and did a classic facepalm.

"Do you now?" the prosecutor said, seizing the moment. He swept around and faced the judge squarely. "Then may I submit, your honor, that defense has just removed any basis for his own objection? Furthermore, does not the same system that grants the accused the right to face an accuser grant that same right in reverse? This witness deserves to be heard, your honor. No – this witness must be heard."

Silence now reigned in the courtroom. Time seemed to be balanced on its edge, waiting for the momentum of events to carry it one way of the other. Finally, the judge stirred. "This witness must not be denied the right to speak," he said. "Objection overruled. Bailiff, would you fetch Miss Walker, please?"

The U.S. marshal who had been sitting attentively off to one side of the judge's bench arose and nodded in reply. He quickly strode away from the bench and down the long center aisle of the gallery before exiting through the double doors in the back. A minute or so later, those doors swung open again. In came the marshal, but now he was escorting a burly middle-aged man pushing a wheelchair, and in the wheelchair was seated a young woman. Almost everyone in the courtroom turned to watch as that trio made their way down the center aisle of the courtroom's gallery towards the bench. John Kendo looked very uncomfortable in a suit and tie, but he was doing his best to deal with it for the sake of the wheelchair's passenger whom he was pushing. As for Elza Walker, the wheelchair's occupant, her demeanor and expression gave reassurance to those who sought it, and fear to those that did not. She was conservatively dressed in a dark skirt and jacket, with matching heels and a complementary blouse to complete the outfit. Even her eyepatch, her legs now beginning to wither from long unuse, and the scars on the left side of her face could not detract from the quiet elegance she seemed to radiate. Her manner was calm and her face serene, as befitting the solemn and serious occasion in which she was now involved. The only one who did not look at her as she approached the witness box was Ozwell Spencer, and she did not look at him as she was wheeled by.

The courtroom was one of those fitted for handicapped access, so there was no trouble in wheeling Elza up and directly to the witness box. The marshal removed the chair inside and set it to one side behind the bench, then he helped John carefully maneuver Elza's wheelchair into the witness box. Once it was in place, she nodded and thanked them both, before the bailiff returned to his seat and John took one in an empty spot that Kevin and Rita had held for him out in the gallery.

The judge looked over, and there was kindness in his words as he spoke. "Are you comfortable, Miss Walker?"

"Yes, sir," she said, nodding. "Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome." The judge smiled, and nodded in reply. He then turned to the prosecutor. "You may begin."

The prosecutor walked up to the witness box, looking directly at Elza the whole time. "Please state your full name for the record," he said.

"Elizabeth Ann Walker." Elza's voice was firm and clear, with no hint of weakness. It was strong enough to carry to every corner of the courtroom.

"Your age when the Outbreak occurred in Raccoon City?"

"Nineteen."

"Your profession at that time?"

"College student."

The prosecutor nodded. "Miss Walker, what were you doing in Raccoon City on the fourth night of the Outbreak, September 28th, 1998?"

Elza thought for a moment, remembering all that had happened. Only a split second passed, yet that entire panoply of events replayed itself in her mind from start to finish in that briefest of spans. She looked at Kevin, Rita, and John in their seats in the courtroom, and they looked back at her with all of the confidence and assurance that they could give her. She now thought of Linda – poor, doomed Linda, and her bloodied and bullet-ridden body lying on the pavement just short of the rescue helicopter. Her eye now fastened on Ozwell Spencer. It only took a glance in her direction for her to catch the gaze of both his eyes with her only remaining one, and hold it with an iron will that had overcome all of the obstacles he and his men had placed in her path, and that of her friends – and that had brought her to this moment, this place, and this event. Her answer to the court was short, succinct, and truthful.

"Surviving the horror, sir."

END PART FOUR

\--------------------

EPILOGUE

The trial made Elza Walker an instant celebrity. Suddenly everyone who was anyone wanted to talk to her, to be with her, to have her on or at his or her own television or radio show or social event, and so on. Such sudden skyrocketing to so great a level of fame would have gone to the head of a lot of other people, but not Elza Walker. She remained on an even keel throughout, kept her head, and didn't let any of it get to her. She listened to the good advice of her friends, carefully chose where she went and what she did, hired herself a competent business manager, and above all else continued to live her new life in exactly the way that she and she alone saw fit. That was why it came as no surprise to anyone who knew her when, upon completion of earning her degree in biochemistry, she not only asked for but was granted a job working as a research scientist with the Federal Bioterrorism Commission (FBC). They were always looking for high-caliber talent to aid in their part of the fight against global bioterrorism. Someone with Elza Walker's background, training, and experience was a natural fit - not to mention her celebrity status - and it was also a major publicity coup for his organization, insofar as agency director Morgan Lonsdale was concerned. Lonsdale exploited Elza being hired by the FBC to the hilt, and milked the event for all of the publicity value it was worth – and who could blame him? As for Elza, however, she let Lonsdale and the other politicians and glory hounds do their thing, while she got on with doing some real work at her new job as soon as she could. Within a few years she had become director of her own research department at the FBC. She also eventually became one of the free world's chief leading scientific experts on both bioterrorism technologies and bio-organic weaponry. In time, Elza Walker became just as famous for what she knew and could do with regards to bio-organic technologies as she had been for her physical exploits in Raccoon City back during the Outbreak.

Despite everything, and despite all of the incredible things that had happened and continued to happen in her new life, Elza remained Elza. Perhaps the most visible sign of this was on the FBC firing range. It had been an odd thing at first for the FBC field agents to see the labcoat-wearing woman in the wheelchair and with the eyepatch "from upstairs" down there – that is, until they found out who she was, how deadly accurate she was, and subsequently learned both her story and her background with weapons. After that there was no problem, and "the lady in the wheelchair" soon became a regular and welcome sight on the range. "She can outshoot us all," one veteran agent told one of the rookies one day, when the rookie saw Elza for the first time on the firing range and asked what she was doing there. Perhaps the fact that her wheelchair provided a more stable firing platform than two legs might have been easily passed off as an excuse; however, such was not the case. Elza was genuinely good, wheelchair notwithstanding, and she kept it up with regular practice. One of the things that she had never lost, one had never been taken away from her as a result of that terrible day in Raccoon City, was her skill with firearms. She had quickly learned to compensate for having only one remaining eye, and soon enough her skill with firearms also became part of her new life. Once the FBC had become aware of it, then Director Lonsdale had wasted no time in exploiting it. So in addition to her many scientific duties with the FBC, Elza also became a certified firearms instructor at his personal request. She was eventually regarded as the best that the FBC ever had during its lifetime. Even experienced agents in other organizations and seasoned military veterans would often come to visit with her – not that they had to learn anything, but to meet and get to know the remarkable woman in the wheelchair who was both the FBC's top scientist and top shooter.

It was that same drive and dedication that not only made Elza such a good firearms instructor, and a top-notch multidegreed research scientist to boot, but also one of the best friends that a lonely little girl who had lost both her parents in the Outbreak could ever have. Sherry Birkin may have felt unappreciated by her natural parents before the Outbreak claimed both of them – but not so after. Now she had Miss Claire and her brother Chris, and Claire's good friend Leon, and the always nutty but ever lovable Uncle John. There was also all of the other friends and relatives these brought with them, such as Miss Valentine, and that Mexican mercenary friend of hers - what was his name? Carlos? - as well as that young woman Ingrid, who always seemed to be covering Leon's back whenever he was away on a mission ... and many more. Always, though, when there was no one else, there was Miss Elza. Even when the various affairs and adventures of the others made them have to go away for a time, Miss Elza was always there. Less than a surrogate mother, but more than a close friend, both Elza Walker and Sherry Birkin developed a bond of friendship as close as that Elza had enjoyed with Claire Redfield during their shared youth together. Furthermore, when Sherry got older, and expressed her desire to follow in the footsteps of the others and become a soldier in the war against global bioterrorism, Elza was there to support her. Elza was just as much one of Sherry's personal heroes as was Claire – for if those two women could go up against Umbrella as they had done and succeed, then why could not she? The peculiar physical abilities granted to her by the now-stablized G-virus within her own body would prevent Sherry from ever having to endure the permanent physical damage that had been wrought upon Miss Elza – but Sherry was determined that her mind would be just as sharp and just as deep. And with Elza to help inspire the training of her mind, and with Claire as a living example for training her body, how could the now-adult Sherry Birkin go wrong?

Above all else, there was one thing about Elza that never changed, despite everything that had happened to her. That was her iron will ... her drive ... her determination not only to meet but to beat and eventually overcome and surmount every obstacle that life placed in her path. And if the direct approach could not work - as with her useless legs and ruined left eye - well, she would back off and then try a different tack, and another, and another, until something finally worked. That iron will of Elza's endeared her to everyone who knew her. She never gave up ... and she was never going to give up, either. As long as she had both the will to live on and some means by which to do it, she would. Elza was still Elza, and there was nobody else like her in the whole world. That was what made her so special to everyone who knew her, and they would remain her friends for the rest of her days.

* * * * *

John Kendo faded from the public scene soon after the events of Raccoon City faded from the news. This was very much to his liking, as he never cared for flashing cameras and nosy reporters, anyway. He took it upon himself to help Claire and Elza with Sherry, and eventually became one of the most beloved fixtures of her new life. "Uncle John," as she still called him, became a father figure of sorts to the orphaned young girl, and they remained close as the years passed and little Sherry Birkin grew to young adulthood. He never changed save for the greying of his hair, remaining as irascible and rowdy as ever, and often to the despair of the other Outbreak survivors who knew him and who lived and worked nearby. John was still John, and that was that.

Kevin Ryman and Rita Burnside remained together even after the events of the Outbreak were concluded. They never married; however, they never split up, either. Friends and what few family both still had tended to blame this situation on Kevin and the influence of his late father, who had likewise never married his mother, but Rita would quickly straighten them out as only she could. "We don't need a silly piece of paper to officially recognize how much we love each other," she would chide. "Besides, if something happens to either one of us, this will leave the other free to get on with their lives. On top of that," and at this she would grin, "I kinda like the idea of living in sin." Her own shocked relatives would then go away shaking their heads and muttering, but Kevin's and all of their friends would simply nod in knowing understanding. The pair relocated to Florida once Rita was out of the hospital, where Kevin had already scoped out a place in the countryside for them to live, and it was down there where they would spend the rest of their lives together. They traded their police badges for those of private investigators, and wound up doing very well for themselves. Although they were now officially out of the war on global bioterrorism, unofficially they still made frequent trips up north and across the country to visit with their other fellow survivors from Raccoon City – and the trio of Elza, John, and Sherry were always at the top of that list. Kevin and Rita never had any children together - she had seen to that after the failure of her marriage back in Memphis years before - and they never bothered to adopt any, given their lifestyles and choice of professions. Instead, they contented themselves with their many visits with Sherry as she grew up, or with seeing the children of the other Outbreak survivors with whom they visited.

As both Elza and Dr. Hamilton had predicted, the events of Raccoon City eventually faded from public view – but they were not completely forgotten. Elza's marred face and crippled body were always there as a potent reminder. There was also the Raccoon City Survivor's Fund, originally organized by her and many of the more famous survivors from Raccoon City. It was first established as a charity for the survivors themselves and their families, but it later expanded to serve all the victims of bioterrorism around the world once that ugly scourge reared its head a few years later. It was the oldest and best known of the various civilian-sponsored bioterrorism charities, and Elza Walker was its official public spokesperson. It worked with all of the world's governments and various anti-BOW agencies and organizations, as well as older charitable organizations such as the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, doing its best to provide succor and aid to the victims of bioterrorism no matter when or where it occurred.

Time passed. Elza Walker continued her work with the FBC, furthering her education and knowledge, and continuing to rise in prominence in the eyes of both her peers and her friends alike. She eventually left the FBC in the wake of the Terragrigia affair – the perceived mishandling of which caused a very public rift between her and Director Lonsdale that never closed. After that, Elza worked for a time with the BSAA's science division – where her various talents were just as needed and even more appreciated than ever. It was also during this period in her life when Elza completed work on her doctorate degree in biochemistry – and she would be known as Dr. Elizabeth Walker (or Dr. Walker for short) to all save friends and family from that point onward. A few years later, when the U.S. Division of Security Operations (DSO) was founded to replace the now-defunct FBC, Dr. Walker was personally requested by President Adam Benford to be the new agency's director of biotechnology research. She accepted the offer, both to the delight of President Benford and to that of two old friends on the new DSO's staff – the young Ingrid Hunnigan, a friend from her early government agency days; and fellow Raccoon City survivor Leon Kennedy, to whom she had been introduced by Claire years ago while still recovering and rehabilitating from the injuries she had sustained during her own Raccoon City experience.

While Dr. Walker was not directly involved in the wild series of events in the spring of 2013 concerning Neo-Umbrella and the C-virus, she was able to provide minor assistance to her friend and junior DSO employee Ingrid Hunnigan. Dr. Walker used her position to help Ingrid run interference with then-National Security Advisor Derek C. Simmonds - mainly by delaying the delivery of key reports, doing her best to distract his attention with other related matters, and so on. Dr. Walker's stalling tactics thus gave Ingrid the time she needed to spirit both Leon Kennedy and his partner Helena Harper out of the country, and hopefully out of the grasp of Simmonds. Both of them were able to successfully get away and board that fateful plane trip to Linshiang, China – where both would eventually help to bring about an end to the C-virus affair once and for all.

Like everyone else, Dr. Walker had mourned the horrible death of President Benford at the start of the C-virus outbreak in Twin Oaks. It reminded her strongly of her own experiences in Raccoon City. That now seemed so long ago. Even so, his was not the only death of a close friend that Dr. Walker suffered during that time. That was why, when the trio of Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy, and the now-adult Sherry Birkin had concluded the affair over in China and were on their way back to the United States, they found messages on their personal display assistants (PDAs) for each of them, sent by Dr. Walker herself. One of the Raccoon City survivors had died of natural causes while they were away or engaged in resolving the affair. Although it was too late now for any of them to attend the funeral, she hoped they would join her at the cemetery in Stoneville, the closest town to the large crater where once Raccoon City had been, as soon as it was convenient for them. That way, she and others who had likewise not been able to attend the funeral for one reason or another could hold a private memorial service of their own.

* * * *

It was a beautiful day in the late summer of the year 2013. Even the cemetery in Stoneville couldn't escape its pleasant touch. The brisk seasonal airs and bright sunshine that came with the season caused even the normally somber trappings of that place to fade into the background, as they were driven back by the touch of life.

Sherry Birkin, newly arrived from her most recent adventure in China and still wearing the same clothes she had on when she had left - there had been no time to change when she got the message on the plane - looked down at the new marker in that section of the cemetery that was reserved for the victims, survivors, and family members of those who had once lived and worked in nearby Raccoon City. Like Raccoon City itself, most of the bodies simply didn't exist anymore. They had been vaporized when the city had been destroyed. Even so, markers had been placed in memory of the living and breathing people that they had once been, and might still had been, had not the Outbreak occurred back at the end of September 1998. The only bodies that were actually interred there were those of the survivors, or their loved ones, who had passed on since. Sadly, for Sherry's visit, the marker stone at which she now stood was placed at the head of one such grave – and the most recent one at that.

There were a number of people present with Sherry on the occasion of her visit. Standing beside a black van parked on the nearby roadway were a tall DSO bodyguard and the seemingly ever-youthful Ingrid Hunnigan. This occasion was not for them, however - for both it was a duty, involving the well-being of all those present - so they kept a respectful distance. With Sherry at the grave were three people, all three of whom looked almost twice her age. Fellow DSO agent Leon Kennedy was the only other man present. She suspected that he had gotten the message about the same time as did she. He too was still wearing the same clothes in which she had last seen him during their recent China adventure together. The other two were women. The first was a tall and attractive-looking redhead. She was standing beside the second, who was a blond of about the same age seated in a wheelchair designed for outdoor environments. The redhead was dressed in comfortable casual clothes that only served to accent her natural beauty. Her hair, which she normally wore in a ponytail, was currently flowing uncharacteristically loose and down about her shoulders. The blond was dressed in tan slacks and a dark green blouse, and was wearing a long labcoat as well. Her long blond hair, both somewhat darker and much longer than it had been in her youth, was done up in front but gathered in the back at the base of her neck in a tail that she had draped over her left shoulder. There was an eyepatch over her left eye socket that hid what remained of the sightless eye behind it, but it could not completely hide neither the edges of the ruined eye socket nor the scarred cheek beneath it. Like Sherry, all three of these people were survivors of Raccoon City ... and because of that, all three of them had Outbreak experiences in common.

Sherry now turned to the woman with the eyepatch in the wheelchair, who held a small bouquet of flowers in her lap. The woman offered it to Sherry, who nodded and took it from her. She then turned and placed the bouquet beneath the marker stone of the new grave in front of which these four had gathered ... the one that read JONATHAN ALVIN KENDO / 1954 - 2013.

"Thank you for coming, Sherry," said Dr. Walker from her wheelchair. "I heard from Chris. He can't make it until tomorrow. Some final matters to clear up regarding the death of Mr. Nivans. My sincerest condolences about Piers, by the way." She now looked at the two DSO agents. "Leon? Sherry? I was rather surprised that the both of you were actually able to make it here when you did, given the way that China business went down and all."

"Right about the same time I got the message from you, Doctor," Leon said, "I got another from the DSO. It said that I had earned more than my share of leave time, and that I was to start taking it, effective immediately. There was no question of me not coming, once I got your message." He then looked over at the redhead. "What about you, Claire?"

Claire Redfield nodded. "When I got Elza's message, I was halfway around the world on Terrasave business. I cleared my calendar as quickly as I could and high-tailed it back. I missed the funeral, just like the rest of you, but I wasn't about to cancel out because of that." She then put a hand on Dr. Walker's shoulder. "You think I'd run out on you and Sherry now?" she said, smiling. "I told everyone at Terrasave that I had some personal business to take care of, and they understood immediately."

"Thanks," Dr. Walker replied, lifting up a hand to place it over Claire's on her shoulder.

"Fifteen years," Sherry said quietly. Everyone else turned to look at her. She was still looking at the marker stone. "It seems like only yesterday ... and yet so much has happened since." She now turned to face them, and all of them could see the tears in her eyes. "I'll always remember Uncle John. You know that."

"Oh, Sherry," Claire said, as she lifted her hand from Dr. Walker's shoulder and stepped forward towards Sherry. She lifted her arms, and Sherry practically fell into them, crying quietly. After a while she looked up, and then held out a hand towards Dr. Walker. The woman lifted one of her own and grasped Sherry's, her one eye also moist.

"If it hadn't been for him," Sherry sobbed, "if it hadn't been for all of you, and Mister Kevin and Miss Rita, I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now, had not all of you inspired me. You are such wonderful people. I'll miss him. I'll miss him oh such much ...."

"I'm reminded of that last trip to that first helicopter," Dr. Walker said, gripping Sherry's hand tightly. "I remember how he ran down that lot with me on that gurney as fast as he could, knowing full well that both of us might be shot by Umbrella at any moment, and yet doing it anyway. He must have hit every bump in that lot, yet he didn't stop for a moment. He was going to make sure I made it out of there alive .... And there were all those other moments we shared .. and that 'Awww, shucks' routine he used to do whenever he got embarrassed ... and that silly thing he always did of scratching the back of his neck whenever he was going to say anything profound."

Sherry laughed despite her tears. "Yeah," she said. "And he had such a big heart, and knew just how to take care of a lonely little girl who had lost both of her parents."

"I'm glad he was there to help Elza and me take care of you while you were growing up," Claire said, "especially those times when I couldn't be there myself. He was such a kindhearted man for someone who didn't look it. Always giving, never expecting anything in return but always grateful for a simple word of thanks."

"And I'm glad I got to know him, too," Leon said. "I didn't know him as well as the rest of you, and I didn't share time during the Outbreak with him like you and Sherry did, Dr. Walker – but I'm glad I got to become his friend all the same, before the end."

Dr. Walker smiled sadly. "I for one am grateful that he got the chance to die a normal death ... and not back there, like all the others." She let out a bittersweet laugh. "I think that's probably a first for any of us, for whatever that's worth."

Sherry let go of Dr. Walker's hand and released herself from Claire's embrace. "Just what was it, exactly?" she asked.

"Heart attack," Dr. Walker said. "Can happen to anyone, at any time. My mother's sister died of one when she was only ten years old."

"How sad," Claire said. She suddenly looked thoughtful. "You know what?" she said, after a moment. "It's funny how it all worked out. You and me, and John and Leon, and Kevin and Rita, and Jill and her friend Carlos, and all that. Like some big jigsaw puzzle, or a well-written play."

"True," Leon said. "We practically passed each other during our respective adventures, Dr. Walker, and none of us knew it back then."

"Yeah," Claire said, still looking thoughtful. "Had I gone back to Raccoon City sooner than I did, then maybe ... just maybe ...." Her voice trailed off as she looked at her friend, wheelchair-bound these past fifteen years because of what had happened to her during the Outbreak.

"I never mentioned this before," Leon said, "because the subject's never come up, but I'll tell you now. My original orders from Chief Irons for my first day on the job were to report to Captain Denham and the Special Police Force at the old RPD station, not the new one. The only reason I didn't end up there was finding that first body on the street. That's what caused me to stop." He looked at Claire. "If I hadn't and kept on going, I would have missed you completely and probably hooked up with Dr. Walker here instead."

"And I'd have been dinner for those zombies at that diner, too," Claire said, a look of mock sarcasm crossing her face. "Thanks a lot, Leon." She then grinned. "No, really. Thanks for stopping. Believe me, I'm glad that you did."

"And so am I," Dr. Walker added. "The last thing I needed then and need now is a dead best friend."

Sherry looked surprised. "I didn't know that."

Leon looked at her with a wry smile that reminded her of the one Kevin always flashed whenever he was about to make one of his little observations. "It's true," Leon said. "Had I kept going and wound up at the old RPD station, like my orders said, then all of our adventures would have gone quite differently."

"Yeah," Claire said. "I know one thing. I'd never have escaped the Outbreak on my own."

"I don't know," Dr. Walker said, a mischievous smile forming on her face. Claire gave her a surprised look as Dr. Walker continued. "You know, I've never thought it was fair you getting such a sweet hunk of a man all to yourself back then. I mean, you got the nice one, and I got – well, what I got wound up hooking up on his own, instead of trying harder to get me. It just wasn't fair."

Leon suddenly looked flustered. Claire's eyes flared. "You ...!" she said in mock hurt. "You haven't changed a bit, Elza – you know that?! Fifteen years, all those college degrees, a doctorate and a well-paying job in a top-notch government lab later, and you're still chasing boys!"

"And why not?" Dr. Walker said, her mischievous smile getting even bigger. "My plumbing still works, thank God! Well, mostly. I can't have kids, but that's all. Everything else is fully functional – and I have needs and desires too, you know, just like any other woman!" Her eyes suddenly narrowed, and she spoke slyly. "Lemme guess. Is the Virgin Queen of Raccoon High still a virgin?"

Now everyone was staring at Clare, including Ingrid and the bodyguard back at the van. Claire turned beet red. Her mouth worked, but it was some time before words came out. "Elizabeth Ann Walker!" she fumed. "I thought this was supposed to be a memorial for Mr. Kendo, not my own crucifixion!"

"Virgin ... Queen?" Leon asked quietly.

"Of Raccoon High?" Sherry added.

Dr. Walker nodded, grinning from ear to ear. "Someday I'll have to tell you guys about the time I helped her out in order to keep that precious little title."

"You do, and I'll push you and that wheelchair of yours off a cliff!" Claire growled menacingly.

The two women, redhead and blond, both lifetime friends, now started to bicker and spar about days and events long past as only two such people can. Sherry turned to Leon and gave him a questioning look. He looked back, then shrugged his shoulders. The two of them then stood back, watching Claire and Dr. Walker go at each other for all it was worth.

The two women had been going at each other for some time when Leon noticed that Sherry had slipped aside. She was standing at the grave again, and was looking rather thoughtful. Leaving the other two women alone to continue their friendly feud, Leon walked over and stood beside Sherry at the grave. "A penny for your thoughts," he said to her.

Sherry turned to look at him. "Oh, Leon. I was just wondering what might have happened if things had been different. If you had done what you were supposed to do, instead of what you did."

"Claire would be dead," Leon pointed out, "and there's no guarantee that my being there at the old station would have prevented Dr. Walker from being crippled the way she was. She might have even been killed, too." He gave her a sad smile. "Between you and me, Sherry, I think things pretty much worked out for the best, or the best that they could have, given the circumstances. After all – all of us survived."

"But that's my point," Sherry said. "Are you so sure? I mean, if we ever did get the chance to do it all over again--?"

"And that's my point," Leon said, interrupting. "We can't do it all over again." He looked away from Sherry and across the cemetery grounds, taking in the rows of Raccoon City markers that surrounded them. "What's been done has been done, and can't be undone, no matter how much we might wish or want it. And even if something similar were to happen - like with Twin Oaks just a few days ago, or with any of the other outbreaks around the world since Raccoon City - we can't make those play the same way. All we can do is take things as they come, and make the best choices we can at the time given the circumstances. I personally have no desire to change the past, because it is in the past, sad though those events might be." He then set his face with a determined look. "I'd rather work to save the future."

Sherry nodded in agreement. "You're a fatalist, Leon."

Leon shook his head. "No, I'm a realist. I play the hand that I've been dealt. That's all any of us can really do." He then chuckled. "And you want to know something, Sherry? Those three ladies who supposedly control Fate have been real bitches with me lately. They've been dealing me some pretty shitty hands."

Sherry nodded, and then her eyes lit. "Well," she replied pleasantly, "I can think of at least one queen in those cards they've been dealing you, Leon. Ada."

Leon looked pensive for a moment, then smiled and nodded. "Okay, one. But she's a special case. You now know that."

Sherry now gave Leon a mischievous grin. "Have you and she ever ...?" She deliberately let the words trail off as she watched for his response.

Leon gave her a look, then replied with his own sidewise grin. "Are you and Jake ever going to—"

"LEON!!!" Sherry cried.

Sherry's sudden outburst caused Claire and Dr. Walker to cease talking and look in her direction. Sherry looked outraged while Leon was chuckling, a smug grin on his face.

"Well, I'd say somebody touched a nerve," Dr. Walker said with a smile.

Claire nodded, also grinning. "He always was like that, you know," she said.

Dr. Walker turned her wheelchair and then rolled the short distance over to them, with Claire following just behind her. She stopped directly in front of the pair and looked up at them both with her own sprightly smile. "Do you mind telling us what that was all about?" she asked innocently.

Sherry and Leon looked at each other, and then back at Claire and Dr. Walker. "No," they said in unison.

Everyone suddenly broke out in laughter. Even Ingrid and the guard by the van were smiling, too. It was Sherry who spoke once they were done. "Now that's the best tribute to Uncle John I can think of," she said. "Our laughter. He would have loved it."

"He probably would have helped it out a lot," Dr. Walker said, smiling in memory, "with some of those wild stories and dirty jokes he was always telling."

"He sure knew how to turn your ear," Claire said, nodding in agreement.

"Couldn't have put it better myself," Leon said, also nodding.

"Well, there you go!" Sherry said, her face lit with joy. "Let's let that be the last thing we leave in Uncle John's memory: the laughter of his friends sharing and caring together, just like he would have wanted it." She waved toward the van, where Ingrid and the bodyguard were waiting. "C'mon," she said. "Let's let the dead rest in peace, and leave the past behind. Tomorrow is another day."

* * * * *

It was two days later, and Chris Redfield had arrived in Stoneville the day before. He had paid his respects at John Kendo's grave, then had gone back to Washington, D.C. with Dr. Walker and his sister Claire, spending the rest of his down time with both of them. It was a rare thing these days when the three of them could get together, as in the years past when they had spent their entire childhood growing up together, so they were making the most of it before each had to return to their respective jobs and duties. It was one of those duties that Dr. Walker was having to perform now, shooting some public service announcements (PSAs) for the Raccoon City Survivor's Fund. Fortunately it was a minor thing, given her otherwise loaded schedule, so she had invited both Chris and Claire along for the experience. Chris had resisted at first when he had heard the unwelcome term TV camera, but Dr. Walker had assured him that he would not have to go in front of one. This did not stop the PSA director from trying to draft both of the Redfield siblings on the spot for the cause, once the most famous face of the bioterrorism war showed up on set along with two almost-as-famous faces, but Dr. Walker had put her foot down and firmly nixed the idea. She might have still been in a wheelchair after fifteen years, but Dr. Walker still had her famous iron will – and the PSA director had literally wilted and melted away back to his assistants by the time she got through with him.

Dr. Walker was now holding still as the makeup artists fussed over her, making their various last minute changes and touch-ups. Behind her, the gaffers and other stage hands were busy making sure that both the set and the lighting were just right. It was a regular ritual by now, one to which she had become accustomed over the many months and now years since the destruction of Raccoon City and the beginning of her new life – but that still didn't mean she had to like it. She endured it because she had to. She had been through far worse things.

From their place behind the glass window and consoles of the control booth some distance away, Chris and Claire watched as Dr. Walker was readied for the cameras. Chris cocked his head to one side, then shook his head. "I don't see how she does it," he said. "I couldn't put up with all that crap for one minute."

"She does it so we don't have to," Claire said. Her brother looked at her strangely. She looked back and smiled. "By her being in the public eye - the living embodiment of all that happened at Raccoon City and after - she draws attention away from folks like us who probably deserve just as much attention, if not more, but who don't want it or need it. Folks who need to be free to continue the fight ... if in our own respective ways." At that last she stopped, looking thoughtful.

"I wish you'd change your mind," Chris said. "What's Terrasave, when the BSAA or even the DSO offers so much more?"

Claire looked up at him. "We do our share too, you know. Besides, I need to do this my own way, Chris, according to what I believe and the way I believe it needs to be done. Just as much as you do with the BSAA – and like the way Elza does in all her things."

"She has to do it this way because she can't do it any other—"

"And neither can I," Claire said quickly. "Chris, please. Respect my decision, even if you don't agree with it."

Chris looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded. "Okay. I'll give you that much. I may not agree with it, but I'll respect it. It's your choice."

"Thank you." Claire turned from him to look back through the glass at Dr. Walker. The makeup artists, gaffers, and stagehands were all scurrying away. The PSA director made one final check, then gave a finger salute to Dr. Walker and trotted toward his camera. Dr. Walker looked back at Claire, grinned, and gave her a quick thumbs-up before resuming what she called her camera pose.

Claire smiled, looking at her wheelchair-bound friend. "There but for the grace of God go I," she quoted.

"There but for the grace of God go all of us," Chris said, moving in behind her. "Any one of us could have ended up the way Elza did."

"You're right," Claire said. She felt Chris place his hands on her shoulders, and she reached up with one of her own to clasp one of them. "That could have been any of us among the survivors in that wheelchair out there, or we could have been among the thousands who didn't survive. And yet we did, and she did, and she's never let what happened to her stop her, or hold her back whenever possible," She smiled admiringly. "The survivors of Raccoon City couldn't have asked for a better public spokesperson – or the cause to fight global bioterroism, for that matter."

"You won't get any argument from me, Sis," Chris agreed. "Did you know that donations to the BSAA skyrocketed once Elza started doing these PSAs? The same goes for the DSO, and all the other agencies and organizations over the years that benefit from what she's been doing."

"Personally I think it's her sex appeal," Claire joked, then her face became serious, "but I'm not surprised. Elza is one remarkable person."

"That she is," Chris said approvingly. "That she is."

The warning light flashed, and everyone in the control booth went silent. Out on the stage, well behind the camera, the PSA director was mouthing a countdown and both signaling it with his hand the same time. "Five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... go!" With that his hand pointed at Dr. Walker, and the light on the camera came on.

In the control room, all of the monitors showed the image of a woman in the early years of middle age attractively dressed in a conservative blouse and skirt, with heels to match. She wore her long blond hair bound in a simple tail, one that she had draped over her left shoulder. She would have been a nearly perfect picture of mature feminine beauty had it not been for the wheelchair in which she was sitting ... or the atrophied legs whose feet rested on the wheelchair's footpads, legs that had not been used in a long time and would never be used again ... or the scarred left cheek that marred an otherwise almost perfect face ... or the black eyepatch covering her ruined left eye – an eye that would never see again. And yet, the remaining eye sparkled with life, and its deep blue iris and jet black pupil was as firmly fixed on the camera as was its bearer's gaze. Furthermore, the whole pose and bearing of the woman dared you to feel sorry for her, and instead challenged you with a strength that had borne this particular woman through hell and back again, physical price notwithstanding. When the woman spoke, she spoke with a voice that was clear and strong, resolute and determined, yet still hinting of the sensual softness that is God's gift to the fairer sex. She looked straight into the camera, smiled, and addressed all those would be watching.

"Hello," she said pleasantly. "My name is Dr. Elizabeth Ann Walker. My friends call me Elza Walker ... and I'm a survivor of Raccoon City."

 

THE END

 

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An Interview with Exodus author Richard Mandel

In this two-part canned interview, the author of Resident Evil: Exodus - The Tale of Elza Walker talks about the various sources he used in developing his updated take on Elza's story, as well as the differences between his work and Resident Evil 1.5 and why he made some of the creative decisions that he did regarding Resident Evil: Exodus.

\--------------------

Q: What were some of the influences on you in writing Exodus, other than the Resident Evil franchise itself? Did you watch The Walking Dead, or any other zombie TV shows and movies?

A: I haven't seen a single episode of The Walking Dead as of right now, and that was a deliberate choice on my part. I probably ought to watch it, now that Exodus is done. I hear it's a damn good show. The same goes for all of the newer zombie TV shows and movies. I didn't want any of them to influence me in writing Exodus. I wanted to stay as close to the original Resident Evil source materials as possible, and I was afraid I might get my ideas corrupted or polluted by these other newer zombie story sources. I had very definite ideas about what I wanted to do with Exodus, you see.

That said, there are some definite outside influences on Exodus. I myself have cited Batman: The Killing Joke as a big one -- although what happens to Elza in Exodus has distinct differences to what happens to Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke. For those differences I cite a much older influence: Leiji Matsumoto's Queen Emeraldas. There's also a strong dose of Suzuki Toshimichi's Priscilla Asagari from the original Bubblegum Crisis/Crash series in my characterization of Elza Walker, as well as hints of both her Boomer friend Sylvie and STAR TREK's Eve McHuron from the classic series episode "Mudd's Women."

There are a lot of feature film influences. Both I and Capcom were influenced by James Cameron's Aliens, for example, and I even make reference to it in the course of the novel. The obvious influence of the original Assault on Precinct 13 is there due to the source material, as is the original Night of the Living Dead. I even re-watched both movies - I saw them both a long time ago, back when I was younger - to reacquaint myself with them. Another joint influence is the B-grade monster movie Alligator - and again, I make an indirect reference to it in the course of the novel. There's a rather obvious Phantasm reference, with Ozwell Spencer channeling the Tall Man in the way he chews out his son over what he did to Elza ("BOY!!!"). There are other lesser influences, too -- some cited in the novel and some only alluded to. Allistar MacLean's The Guns of Navarone, Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and The Birds, the short stories of Saki, the classic horror of H.P. Lovecraft, and so on. Both of the first two Max Max films have both allusions to and scenes in Exodus directly inspired by scenes from both of them. There's lots of TV influence, too - The Prisoner (the Patrick MacGoohan original), STAR TREK, The Twilight Zone, Tales of the Unexpected, and so on - but especially with regards to anime. I've been a big fan of anime ever since Star Blazers (Uchuu Senkan Yamato), and there's even a dash of that in there in how Kevin evolves from a smartass into a smart leader -- just like young Kodai (Derek Wildstar) does in that show. You can also see the influence in Exodus of such excellent anime titles like Hellsing, Vampire Hunter D, Cityhunter, VOTOMS, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and so on.

I cite four authors as my chief influences with regards to my storytelling style: J.R.R. Tolkien, David Gerrold, Leiji Matsumoto, and Robert E. Howard. Tolkien was my first introduction to the invented world grounded in reality, Gerrold shared with me the concept of the willing suspension of disbelief, Matsumoto inspired me with his characters and characterizations, and Howard has a simply wonderful way that he could spin almost any story and suck you right into it. I'll also admit to an overall Edgar Rice Burroughs influence, in that I wanted a rollicking good adventure which would keep you entertained from start to finish, and at the end make you say, "Now THAT was a story!" (laugh)

Q: Are there any of your personal experiences on which you drew in crafting Exodus?

A: Well, it's said that all writers put something of themselves in their stories. That's true with me and Exodus. I put a little of myself into each and every character. Rita's from the South and I'm from the South, so I was able to draw on my own childhood and young adulthood in developing her character. Also, she's divorced and so am I, so I was able to draw partly on my own experience and those of several fellow divorcee friends, both male and female, with regards to what happened with her. I'm prior military and Kevin's prior military, although we were in different branches. I was Navy, he's former Army. I have a lot of Army friends, though, who were able to help me keep things straight with Kevin, and also with the Echo Team materials. A lot of Elza's personality is based on my own, in particular her determination to finish what she starts no matter what. Most of the towns in which I've lived in the American South and Southern Midwest are about the approximate size as Raccoon City, so I could draw on my own experiences in living in towns like those. I also drew on my memories of the northern part of Memphis, Tennessee - its old industrial district, the way it used to be while the Hernando de Soto bridge was still being built and before the Pyramid even existed - for work on the Factory stage chapters. John Kendo is based on a lot of so-called "gentle giants" I have known and worked with over the years. On top of that, I have a niece for whom I helped care as she was growing up, so I was able to draw on those experiences in developing the scenes with Elza, John, and Sherry. As for when Elza is crippled, I had one family member and one close friend in my youth who couldn't walk - my invalid grandfather, and a fellow computer hacker back in the day who suffered from multiple sclerosis. And so on, and so on.

Q: It's neat the way you've scattered in references to other things happening in Raccoon City about the same time as Exodus - the events of RE2 and RE3, the Outbreak stuff, and all that - along with the story itself.

A: That again is deliberate. One of the worst weaknesses of the original Resident Evil 1.5, as former project director Shinji Mikami himself pointed out at the time, was that there wasn't really any way to tie it in with the rest of the franchise - or actually the first game (Resident Evil), since that's all they had at the time. It was just "there," if you will, aside from some vague references in the background materials and such. It makes for an even more jarring disconnect than what fans were given with Resident Evil 4 later on - which stuck a present-day Leon off all by himself in southern Spain, of all places, before serving up its own unique mix of horrors. The franchise connection issue was a major problem which needed fixing if a revamped version of the story - Exodus, in this case - were ever going to be successfully re-integrated into said franchise. Fortunately, two decades' worth of additional Resident Evil product later makes for a big difference. There's now a whole wealth of material available to fix this problem, as well as to fill out the otherwise gaping holes in the back story. Also, along the way, I get the privilege of giving readers a peek at what's happening in parallel with other stories while doing my best not to overwhelm the unique story I'm telling. That's why I do it in interludes, flashbacks, cameos, aside, even short references, and so on. All said, it's nice to have all of that other stuff available, and I know that fans are expecting it to be there - but Exodus needs to remain focused on Elza's story, and not these others.

Q: Yet you still had to come up with a lot of your own material.

A: Yes. That had to do more with the way Resident Evil 1.5 was developed more than anything else. There was that early production outline, and then a lot of that changed by the time work on the game began, and sub-groups of [Hideki] Kamiya's team were handling each stage separately, and so on. There's a lot of "game" but not a whole lot of background and backstory which actually goes with that "game" in its final (albeit unfinished) form. I tried to key off what Capcom later developed for the other games and side materials and such, but in some cases I had to cut my own cloth.

Q: Let's talk about your take on Elza Walker. What gave you the idea to make Elza and Claire best friends since childhood?

A: One of the things I had to do in creating Exodus was come up with a full background for Elza Walker almost completely from scratch. I mean, everything Capcom ever came up with about her wouldn't fill a sheet of paper. There's also the inescapable fact that her character was the basis for Claire, and it's very easy to follow the transition process from Elza to Claire after Resident Evil 1.5 was cancelled and Resident Evil 2 created from large pieces of it. Claire was one of those pieces. She's Elza reborn and reworked - and the fact that she's the sister of Chris Redfield helps provide that link to the first Resident Evil game which was so sorely missing in Resident Evil 1.5. Now obviously I couldn't make them sisters - that would have been going too far! (laugh) But why not best friends? That way they'd still have a lot in common, per their shared development history, yet it would leave me free to begin working up a more fully developed backstory for Elza's character which simply didn't exist with the original game. They'd share common interests, such as biking, and they'd do a lot of things together. Making them best friends since childhood also allowed me to bring another character development tool into play, and that's what I call background by proxy.

The idea behind background by proxy is that we get to find out about someone through the experiences of someone else. Let's face it - we know hardly next to nothing about Claire Redfield, much less her brother Chris, prior to the events of the Outbreak. Having Elza there as Claire's best friend allowed me to open a window for the fans onto this otherwise dark and obscured part of their collective past. You learn more about the Redfield family prior to the events of the Outbreak in Exodus than in almost any other single Resident Evil source - provided Capcom lets it stand, of course. (smile). I also use background by proxy with other characters to provide other windows, too. John Kendo is a good example of doing that with a lesser character. You learn things about his brother Robert Kendo, who died right off the bat in Resident Evil 2, than you wouldn't have known otherwise. Little Miss Rita (Burnside) is a veritable gold mine of background information - not only on certain aspects of the past history of the Redfields, but also on other people and events in Raccoon City. And so on, and so on.

Q: What happens to Elza Walker in Exodus is pretty horrible - the part about her losing an eye and winding up half-paralyzed - and it's not part of the original story for the game. Why did you change that?

A: I decided early on that if I were going to bring Elza Walker back into canon, or restore her character to the franchise roster of heroes, as it were, then I was going to have to explain what happened to her. I mean, this is the only story in which she appears, and it's been almost two decades since it happened. What happened to Elza Walker after that?

The idea that something was going to happen to Elza Walker during the course of her adventures in Exodus which would essentially "take her out," as it were, was always part of what I had planned for the story. This is partly a tribute to CODE: Veronica and what happens to Claire in that game - still one of the greatest Resident Evil cliffhangers ever - but was also inspired by one of my early plays of my copy of the 40% build of the game. I still have somewhere a digital recording of that particular playthrough, during which G-Birkin flattens Elza against a warehouse wall with his pipe. She promptly gets back up, of course - after all, the game wasn't finished yet at that point - but my sense of reality screamed, "NO!" She would have either been killed or seriously injured by such a hit. That's where it all started, I guess -- the idea that Elza got taken out during her own adventure.

With regards to Exodus, and what happens to Elza in that, I didn't want to do like Capcom is frequently guilty of doing with Resident Evil side or guest characters - invent an interesting character, then either promptly kill them off or leave them just out there at the end of the story, with nothing else to do and not being reused in later stories - or not being reused until years later. Rebecca Chambers is probably the best example of that. I mean, look how long it took for Capcom to reuse her in Resident Evil 0, and then again for the Vendetta CGI movie? There's all kinds of other examples you could name, too. Bruce McGivern and Fong Ling from Dead Aim, Ark Thompson and the Klein siblings from Gun Survivor, Helena Harper from RE6, Carlos Olivera from RE3 -- we haven't seen him in any post-RE3 tales so far, now, have we? (laugh) And so on.

Also, and this is important, you've never seen a major Resident Evil hero or heroine "taken out" per se until Exodus. I mean, we've been teased with it three times now - with Claire and Steve in CODE: Veronica, with Jill in Resident Evil 5, and with Moria Burton in Revelations 2 - but we've never actually seen it happen. There's always some kind of deus ex machina Capcom puts in place to ensure it doesn't really happen. It happens in Exodus, though. It happens to one of the most beloved of the franchise characters, and it happens in a very horrible way that leaves her permanently disabled. That's not supposed to happen -- but it does, and that's what makes it so horrible. Yes, it's horrible - but horrible things are supposed to happen in horror stories. You can't have the good guys come out on top all of the time, because then such stories stop being horrible and become run-of-the-mill action-adventure tales. This is the one time in the whole of the Resident Evil franchise to date where the good guy, or good girl in this case, didn't come out the other end scot free.

There's also another way you can look at that. It's an allegory of sorts to what happened to both Elza and the game in which she was to have been featured. Both essentially got gutted and large parts removed in order to come up with Resident Evil 2. They're not complete anymore, in a way. I didn't want to dance around that, and I didn't want the end to essentially be a rehash of what fans now associate with Resident Evil 2, so I rewrote it. I took that issue, and wove it into the fabric of Exodus itself in order to come up with an adventure that could stand on its own, and no longer be tied to the later story -- yet the connections would still be there and recognizable for those who knew about them. Consider this: the original Resident Evil 1.5 was just over three-quarters complete when [Shinji] Mikami decided he needed to pull the plug on it. What had already been done up to that point was partially gutted and reworked in order to come up with Resident Evil 2. Elza as a character got pretty much gutted, too, and morphed into Claire Redfield as we all know and love her today. Something similar happens with Exodus, and that's deliberate. Three quarters of the way through the story, just when it looks like everybody's finally working together at last and the final stage of their escape is in sight, G-Birkin comes along and trashes everything. He also trashes Elza, too, leaving her barely alive and in the sad shape that she's in once the others come to her rescue. The way she finally escapes Raccoon City - or rather, is helped to escape by the friends whose loyalties she won before she was crippled - is completely different than the original, again like the development history. Furthermore, what happens after that, as Elza struggles to recover and later rebuilds her life in an entirely different role than when she started, is a nod to all of those Resident Evil fans who have kept her character alive ever since her game was cancelled and she was supposed to fade away and be forgotten. She obviously didn't ... and we have the fans to thank for that.

Q: This is also where The Killing Joke connection comes in, right? I mean, Elza winds up the same situation as Barbara Gordon. She ends up being horribly injured, physically humiliated, and in the end can only continue fighting crime - or Umbrella, in this case - from a wheelchair.

A: I won't dispute the similarities. What's different is in the way this horrible event is treated, and that's where the Queen Emeraldas influence comes into play. In The Killing Joke, Barbara is not only shot and paralyzed, but physically degraded and humiliated by the Joker as part of that process out of sheer sadism. No such thing happens to Elza in Exodus. She has her own humiliating physical assault which happened to her, yes, but it took place months earlier and is only recounted in flashback in the novel part. Elza's crippling in Exodus is not only a separate and distinct event, but it's true that it's also a critical point for her character's development. She doesn't have to go through the same thing Barbara Gordon went through, thanks to both the situation and the presence of her friends and fellow survivors - or the presence of Claire, with regards to the flashback about the assault. Not only do they do their best to protect her, but they help begin the process of helping her come to terms with what's happened to her, and thus help her begin that long, slow road to recovery and a new life which is briefly described in the Epilogue. There's also Elza's iron will, and that's very much a Matsumoto thing. She's not about to let being permanently disabled stop her from learning how to live a new life, nor continuing the fight against Umbrella and later on against global bioterrorism. She rises to the challenge of the new life which has been forced upon her by her disability, just as Emeraldas rises to the challenges of her scarred face and the solitary lifestyle she has chosen for herself. And in a way, that's almost like Barbara Gordon did too, at the end of The Killing Joke - if you think about it.

Q: Ah, yes - the Matsumoto connection. You mention his philosophy of scars in the novel, when Elza decides not to have surgery to repair the damaged left side of her face.

A: There's a scene in the classic STAR TREK episode "The Conscience of the King," where one of the early characters in the story, Dr. Thomas Leighton, broods over what was done to him by Kodos the Executioner when he was a young man. He turns his head to face the camera, since he's only shown in profile up to that point, and you can see that one side of his face is completely missing - covered by a black half-mask. Leighton has been brooding over what happened to him back then so much that he lets it get the better of him, and now actively seeks revenge for what happened to him then. That desire eventually gets him killed, of course. I didn't want Elza to wind up like that. Instead, I was drawn to a scene in the Queen Emeraldas manga, shortly after Emeraldas receives that horrible facial scar with which she is almost constantly depicted. A friendly alien offers to remove it surgically and restore her former beauty, but Emeraldas declines. "I want to keep it," she says. "I want to remember how I got it, and why, so I'll never make that mistake again." It's such a powerful scene that I directly reference it in Exodus. Elza chooses to keep her ruined face not because she's a victim, and suffers because of it, but because she's a strong-willed woman who now considers that horrible injury part of her person. It's part of what makes the new Elza who she is. It also serves as a potent reminder of Raccoon City, too -- but in a more positive light than Dr. Leighton's facial scars, or even that of Two-Face in the Batman stories. Those scars had a negative impact on the person scarred. I follow Matsumoto's lead, and have Elza's scars be a postitive one.

Q: Tell us about Jack Spencer.

A: Ah, yes ... "good ol' Jack," the chief villain in Elza's backstory. Jack as a character has his origins in Resident Evil REmake. There's this red-haired zombie wearing a mauve jacket that seems to have a thing for the women in the game. I mean, you first run into him hanging around outside of the room where Rebecca's holed up, and he keeps showing up in Jill's game as if he's chasing her. I mean, he shows up in Chris' game, too, but its his scenes with Jill - particularly his death scene in the bathroom - that fans remember. There's more than one fanedit "movie" of the game out there where it looks like that red-haired zombie in the mauve jacket is doing nothing but chasing Jill all over the place. It's both funny and frightening at the same time. That image of "Jake the zombie" chasing Jill - "Jake" is what I called him at the time - just stuck in my head, almost as bad as G-Birkin clobbering poor Elza with his pipe. And that's not the only time he does it, either. I mean, Capcom reused that zombie in Resident Evil Zero aboard the train, and what's the first thing he does? Goes after Rebecca, of course. If anything, he's true to form. That's when the idea began to form in my head that if "Jake the zombie" was acting like a lecher as a zombie, then he might have been one in real life. What would a known lecher be doing at the Spencer Mansion, though? Unless he were being allowed to stay there, of course ... unless he was part of the Spencer family. Once that idea came to me, I decided to explore it further once I started work on Exodus.

I'm glad you brought up the subject of Jack Spencer, because this gives me the chance to revisit the distinction between what happens to Elza in her backstory for Exodus, and what happens to Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke. Barbara Gordon is made to suffer and is physically degraded at the hands of a sadist who's doing it for the sheer pleasure of it. Jack Spencer, on the other hand, is nothing but a rich playboy pervert. Barbara can never get justice against the Joker for what he did to her, and it's Batman who has to do it for her. Elza, on the other hand, gets the chance to even the score with Jack -- and by the intervention of his own father, of all people.

Q: And that's how both Ozwell Spencer and Sergei Vladimir got their scenes in Exodus, right?

A: In a way. I hadn't originally planned for either of them to be in the story. Neither one of them appear in any of my drafts until about a year into writing Exodus. Once I began to further develop the story behind Elza's dark past, and tied it to being assaulted by Jack Spencer, then it was a natural that his father Ozwell would get involved. It was only going to be a passing mention and nothing more, at first -- but the more and more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that here was a golden opportunity to further develop yet another character whom Capcom has not treated well. I mean, at this particular point in time Ozwell Spencer is on top of the world, and on top of his game. His extended cameo in Exodus serves as the prelude towards that dramatic fall both he and his business, the Umbrella Corporation, are about to take per the classic Resident Evil stories. This is where it all starts to go wrong for him -- by having to come back from Europe and dealing with the aftermath of his son's perverted sexual escapades. It also puts him back in the Raccoon City area so he can be airlifted out at the end of of the T-virus Outbreak, per one of the Umbrella Chronicles stories. Another franchise loose end tied off there.

Speaking of Sergei, his part in Exodus literally came out of the blue. I had originally developed the character of Kato (named for the Green Hornet character) for the part Sergei eventually winds up playing. It didn't occur to me to fill the role for Sergei until I was doing some cross-researching on another related topic. Once I realized that Capcom's official background for Sergei would have put him both in the place and position for which I had developed Kato, then I immediately switched over to him for the role. It wasn't just because of the official Capcom line, either. I immediately recognized that here was a second golden opportunity to more fully develop a character whom Capcom had not treated well. I mean, unless you've looked up the Umbrella Chronicles background materials, Sergei comes across as both one-dimensional and almost cartoonish. He's a stock villain stereotype and nothing more. Now, with his small yet important part in the Exodus flashback, you get to see a whole new side of Sergei you haven't seen before - just like you do with his boss, Ozwell Spencer. And with both of them, you quickly come to realize that both men are far more complicated and intriguing as characters than how Capcom has treated them so far. That at least is what I tried to do with them. I wanted to make both of them more fully rounded as franchise characters so they can pull their own weight with the rest of the more established heroes and villains of Resident Evil. I hope Capcom lets it stand.

Q: What about Linda Merton?

A: Linda ... is complicated. I've always gone with that particular Resident Evil 1.5 character's original name, per the early character reference sheet for the game designers, in order to keep her a different and distinct character from Ada Wong -- or rather, what Ada eventually became in Resident Evil 2. She didn't have a last name in that original form, however, so I borrowed one from one of my favorite British actresses, Zienna Merton. For those of you who don't know her, she was computer technician Sandra Bennes on the TV series SPACE:1999, and in her younger days played the Chinese chambermaid Ping Cho on the now-lost classic Doctor Who serial "Marco Polo." She has always been a delight to watch over the years, and back in the day she would have been perfect for the part of Linda. That's how Linda got the last name "Merton."

As for Linda's character and background, well, we're almost in the same boat with John when it comes to Resident Evil 1.5 itself. You can fit everything that's known about her in a few sentences. Something like, "Linda (Ada) is one of the Umbrella researchers who was rounded up by the RPD right before the Outbreak went down. She gets rescued by Leon from the back of a burning SWAT van behind the RPD and ends up being his secondary NPC. She's nothing special nor is she a superspy like Ada Wong; she's just a scared-as-hell woman trying to stay alive any way she can. Sadly, she winds up getting killed in the Platform Elevator Room of the Underground Lab, right before she might have escaped." That's pretty much it. That's all I had go to on, save for one other thing: the development history connection she has with Ada Wong of Resident Evil 2, just like Elza Walker has one with Claire Redfield. And like I did with Elza and Claire, I decided that connection would be where I would start in coming up with what eventually became Linda Merton of Exodus.

Q: And that's how you came up with the idea that it was Linda's identity that Ada Wong had stolen when she began spying on Umbrella.

A: Right. It allows me to invert the whole Linda/Ada thing - to stand it on its head, as it were. The very first Resident Evil game talked about an Umbrella researcher named John (no connection to John Kendo or RE1.5's John) whom Ada had befriended and pretended to fall in love with, so she could get an inside connection with Umbrella. Assuming Linda's identity for her own visit inside the security vault at Umbrella's Chicago labs is a logical development of that same line of thought. She would have access to a lot of Umbrella's personnel records through her boyfriend John, so she picked the one employee she happened to best resemble and used that as her false identity. That poor unfortunate soul happened to be Linda Merton ... and Ada's theft of Linda's identity started the ball rolling on most of the poor woman's troubles that are explored in Exodus.

Have you ever had your identity stolen? I have, and I can tell you it's no fun. I also went through a rather recent harrowing experience somewhat similar to Linda's situation up in Chicago with regards to incorrect identity and assumption of guilt without proper proof and all that. That was no cakewalk, either. I drew on both of those, as well as the experience of others, in crafting what happened to Linda just prior to when we first meet her in Exodus. It makes for a more interesting and involving character that what Capcom gave you in the original game.

Q: That makes me think of John - or John Kendo in Exodus, as you've recast him. How did you come up with him?

A: Ah, good ol' John - DXP's favorite character in the entire novel. (laugh). Well, if you've ever looked at the original Resident Evil 1.5 materials, you can fit everything there is about John in just one sentence. It would go something like, "A common laborer who happens to be locked up at the old RPD when the Outbreak goes down, and who winds up being Elza's chief non-playable character (NPC) assistant." That's it. Period. He's not the same John that's mentioned in the first Resident Evil, and who was supposed to have been the means by which Ada managed to infiltrate Umbrella before the classic games ever begin. He's a completely different character - but, like his 40% build model, he's just "there." No personality, no real background, only a few snippets of dialogue, not even a face on his in-game model, and that's that ... which left me free to go my own direction with him.

Back in the day, when the hunt for Resident Evil 1.5 was still very much an ongoing thing, and fans were putting together that big database on the game which is such a wonderful source of information, there was a lot of speculation about John. Fans quickly figured out that Capcom had recycled John's character model for Robert Kendo in Resident Evil 2, and so somehow the misconception arose that John and Robert Kendo were brothers. I think there's even pieces of these early discussions left on some of the old fan forums out there, if they're still up or if anybody's archived them. Anyway, having no other "hook" available on which to build up a character profile for John, I decided to take that one and run with it for all it was worth. That's how John wound up being John Kendo in Exodus in a nutshell. Along the way, I developed his character based on several "big men" I have known or who I liked from other media. There's a big fella who was working inside the warehouse at the real-life job I have from whom I drew a lot of John's lovable simple-mindeness. Robotech's (Mospeda's) Lunk comes immediately to mind from my favorite fictional examples, but there are many others.

By the way, once I decided to go with John the way I did - making him and Robert brothers - then that allowed me to do another background by proxy turn with him, like I did with Claire and Elza. I mean let's face it - Robert Kendo's part in Resident Evil 2 is extremely short. You see him, you talk briefly, the zombies break into his gunshop, and he gets killed. End of story. With Exodus, however, we get to find out more about Robert Kendo than we knew before, and by someone who's an authority on the subject - his own elder brother. Just like you do with the younger Claire Redfield and her best friend Elza Walker.

Q: But doesn't Robert Kendo already have a brother (Joseph "Joe" Kendo) per other franchise adventures?

A: Oh, that's easy to hand-wave away. John is Robert's older brother, and Joe is his younger brother. Or Robert has two older brothers, John and Joe. Problem solved. (smile) Next question.

Q: What gave you the idea for using Outbreak characters in Exodus, such as Kevin Ryman and Rita Burnside, instead of the ones originally featured in Resident Evil 1.5?

A: Well, I had to do so. I mean, most of the entire cast of Resident Evil 1.5 got recycled for Resident Evil 2, although a lot of parts were changed and some were even reduced. I couldn't have the same characters in two different places doing two different things - especially dying, in some cases - because that would have presented a major continuity problem with the rest of the franchise. It was my late friend Fumio [Yamaguchi] who first suggested using the Outbreak characters, and who also first pointed out that the end of "Desperate Times" (Outbreak File 2) could serve as the perfect springboard for a revised, canon-compatible revamp of Resident Evil 1.5. And you know what? The more and more I thought about it, the more and more sense it made. Not only did it solve most of the casting problems, but it also allowed me to do service to two long-suffering sections of the Resident Evil fanbase - the RE1.5 crowd and the Outbreak crowd - and do it in a way that did proper tribute to both of their favorite stories. It also gave me a chance to further develop both Kevin and Rita as characters -- and that was lots of fun!

Q: Yet Sherry Birkin appears in both Exodus and Resident Evil 2.

A: Yes ... and that was the one issue that almost derailed the whole thing. You see, Sherry is so integral to the plot of both adventures that it's a very hard thing to extract her and not change the story. It just wouldn't be the same in either case. I mean, you can no more imagine Resident Evil 1.5 without having Sherry's help in the Factory stage than you can when you find Sherry in Resident Evil 2. Same character, different situations. That's probably why Capcom bypassed the original Factory stage altogether in Resident Evil 2, using an underground route to take you straight to the train yard instead. They were already a year behind schedule, and they just didn't have the time to redo the old Factory stage in order to remove Sherry's part ... which left me with my particular vexing problem almost two decades later. What to do about the two different appearances in two different locations?

I finally decided that the only way I could make Sherry's character fit in both stories was to have the events of Exodus begin a full day before those of Resident Evil 2. That would make it run in parallel with the events of Resident Evil 3, and I could even key off of that in certain respects - such as Jill's cameo, where Elza rides past her on her bike while Jill is being chased down the street by a pack of zombies. That gave me just enough time to allow for Sherry to leave the story at some point and turn up later in Resident Evil 2. That's one of the big differences between Exodus and the original Resident Evil 1.5. In the latter, Sherry stays in the story all the way to the end. In Exodus, she disappears after the battle with G-Birkin in the Factory. This was necessary because from that point on in Resident Evil 1.5, most of everything which Sherry does or happens to Sherry got recycled for Resident Evil 2. She goes looking for her lost father, her now-mutated and infected father finds and infects her, our heroes have to come up with an antidote to cure her, and so on. By placing the events of Exodus a full day before those of Resident Evil 2, the point at which Sherry has to leave the story of Exodus gives her just enough time to get back across town and back at the new RPD station, so she can reappear in Resident Evil 2.

Q: That's some rather tight timing, though. And the distance she has to cross - not to mention the retconning that's required with some of the background stuff from Resident Evil 2, like the Chief's Diary and such.

A: It's no more of a retcon than Capcom itself did with the two Chronicles games, Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles - and I won't even bring up the continuity issues involved with Operation Raccoon City. That's why I rewrote the Echo Team materials for Exodus, so they'd be a better fit. (smile) I'll admit - the timing for Sherry's return trip is tight, especially for a young girl like her - but it can be done. I once ran away from home when I wasn't much older than Sherry, so I know how much ground a kid of that age can cover if they've got half-a-day and manage to somehow keep moving most of the time. There's all sorts of real world and fictional examples of similar events involving young kids, too. The only real retcon you have to do is simply ignore those entries in the Chief's Diary which deal with Sherry's arrival, and that's that. Maybe he was delusional, and was making them all up as he wrote them down. There's all sorts of ways to hand-wave around that. Anyway, all that really happens is that Sherry gets to the new RPD a few days later in Exodus than she does in the original version of Resident Evil 2 - in fact, with only just enough time to grab a few hours of sleep before Claire and Leon show up. That's not that bad of a retcon now, is it? (smile). If it is, let's discuss the RE3-based sections of Umbrella Chronicles, and then you can talk to me about major retconning issues.

To be honest, I had originally planned for two days, instead of just one - but I ran into even more timeline and timing issues on the front end going that way. Making Exodus concurrent with Resident Evil 3 was about the best I could do with regards to the timeline. It's not a perfect fit, but it's a "best fit" given what I've been able to come up with.

Q: I understand that some fans have taken issues with you regarding how Exodus retcons the so-called "canon" timeline of events during the Raccoon City Outbreak, as well as changing the story of Resident Evil 1.5 itself.

A: Most of those same fans are self-style "fan experts" who pride themselves about knowing every little bit of minutae about Resident Evil - like it really matters. They're just games, folks - and Capcom's going to change that precious "canon" at will whenever it suits them for whatever they need at the time for pushing more product. End-of-line.

What Resident Evil fans need to realize is that there is no set "canon" to the Resident Evil universe. Whatever "canon" might be is whatever Capcom needs it to be at the time they're releasing a particular product. It's a canon of convenience, not a fixed one. I mean, we now have three different versions of what happened to Claire and Leon during the Raccoon City outbreak - Resident Evil 2, Darkside Chronicles, and Operation Raccoon City - and who knows what other changes might be made for RE2 REmake? There's a general sequence and series of events, as well as certain dates, which help provide a general frame of reference - but there's no set "canon" per se. "Canon" is whatever Capcom needs it to be at any given time in order to suit their purposes.

That's why I wasn't too worried about toeing the so-called "canon" line in writing Exodus. I tried to make it as compatible as possible with what Capcom seems to prefer (wink) and fans generally accept to be the sequence of events of the Raccoon City Outbreak in 1998, but I still had to take a few minor liberties. I tried to keep them as few and as minor as possible, though. It's not like I totally reinvented what's supposed to be "canon," as Capcom did with RE3 and the associated sequences in Umbrella Chronicles, because Resident Evil 1.5 isn't technically "canon," anyway. It's in a dead end, what-if alternate universe if you're being strictly "canon," with only two other games in there with it - the original Resident Evil and the never-realized Biohazard Dash. As for me, I prefer to leave any so-called "canon" issues to the self-appointed canon nazis, most of whom probably still live in their parent's basements and spend most of their days blogging on the Internet, and instead I'll worry about entertaining the rest of Resident Evil fandom with a ripping good story that I've done my best to make fit with what they generally know and accept along with the rest of their favorite Resident Evil stories. I frankly don't give a damn what the fandom "canon" nazis think, to borrow Rhett Butler's most famous line -- and I never will, either. As long as most Resident Evil fans enjoy Exodus, then I'm satisfied.

Q: Tell us about your ideas behind a videogame version of Exodus. Even if Capcom has officially declined to do it, what if a talented group of fans wants to take it on?

A: They certainly won't get any objections from me! (laugh) And since Capcom has indeed officially passed on doing it themselves, that leaves the door wide open. As long as Capcom doesn't object, and I certainly won't - I'd be glad to help in any way I could - then anything's possible. I tell you what, though. If I could get the same caliber of dedicated fans behind an Exodus videogame who were going to do RE2 HD, or even the ones behind that RE2 Source Demo, I think it would kick ass.

By the way, Exodus as a novel is deliberately overwritten so it could be trimmed back storywise for a videogame adaptation. How much trimming would be done would be up to who does it. As long as the core story remains, though - including all of Elza's backstory, as it's central to the plot - along with the way I've tried to define the characters within the context of the novel, then I'd gladly welcome a good videogame adaptation of Exodus.

I had a lot of ideas for an Exodus videogame. I tried to work as many of them as I could into the novel, so at least they'd be there in some form. Multiplayer, for starters. There would have been single player and multiplayer modes. The novel proper is but one path for the single player mode, combining both starting player characters - Kevin and Elza - into a single story. The multiplayer mode would have been inspired by that of the old Outbreak games, but borrowing some of the better ideas from later multiplayer Resident Evil games. It also would have featured a simplified story to better fit a multiplayer game, again per the Outbreak series. The two way radios? They're there specifically for the multiplayer mode, so players could chat to each other once they got them. No chatting until you do. (smile) Melee weapons are mentioned in the novel, and would have been a staple of the game for the same reason as in the novel -- so players could save on ammo. Speaking of which, ammo would be as sparse and hard to find as it is in CODE: Veronica's hard mode or the ultra-high hard modes of later Resident Evil games. We're four days into the Outbreak, you know.

Another feature I know fans would have enjoyed would have been how I would have treated the ability to unlock alternate outfits and other characters for players. There would have been two modes: automatic and earned. Automatics would have been unlocked simply by playing the game through at least once and completing it, which each new character automatically unlocked as they appear or are mentioned in the story. These would have been characters who are either part of the story or exist at this point in time in Raccoon City during the Outbreak. Rita would be the very first character to be automatically unlocked in Kevin's game, for example, because she's right there with Kevin at the site of the SWAT van crash when you would have started playing Kevin's game. Jill Valentine in her RE3 miniskirt outfit would have been the first automatic unlock in Elza's game, because of that drive-by cameo in what would have been the opening cutscene for Elza's game. And so on, and so on. Earned characters would have to be obtained the old-fashioned way, by doing whatever the programmers decided you needed to do, or to get, or whatever, just like in any videogame. These would have been characters who don't appear at this point in time but are fan faves. Characters from the later Resident Evil videogames, from CODE: Veronica onward, and so on. Also, Mikhail and Nikolai's parts in the Prologue were originally intended as an unlockable special prelude. You'd have to earn whatever you needed to earn to unlock the Prologue, and once you did you could then watch it and get their characters added in playable form, too. And so on.

Another reason why I have Elza taken out three-quarters of the way through the story is for videogaming reasons. It's a rather blatant nod to how Capcom did CODE:Veronica. Once the fight in the warehouse is over, and the others are riding the elevator down to the Underground Lab with the badly injured Elza, then Exodus the game would have stopped and asked the player, "Which character do you want to choose in order to finish the game?" That's also a nod to the original Resident Evil, with its multiple endings depending on how well (or how badly) you played the game. Each of the other characters - Kevin, Rita, John, and Linda - would have had their own unique set of endings both good and bad, but all of them integrated into the general form of the ending I outlined in the novel. It would have also been the only way to get a "good" ending for Linda, one in which she isn't shot to death by her employers. In Linda's "good" ending, after everyone is rescued, the Wolf Pack would have snagged her right from under Echo Team Command's nose and hauled her off to yet another secret Umbrella lab ... only this time, she was going to be a test subject (like Lisa Trevor) and not a researcher. She would have lived, but it wouldn't have been a happy ending - and that would have been in keeping with what was ultimately planned for her character.

There would have also been mini-games. You how Resident Evil fans are - they simply LOVE their mini-games! (laugh). I had planned for three of them. "Sherry's Quest" would have had you essentially reversing the route Elza and the other survivors took out of the southern half of Raccoon City, so she can get back to the new RPD in time to hook up with Claire and Leon. The kicker would have been this: since you're playing as Sherry, you don't get ANY weapons. You can only run, dodge, climb, crawl, and hide. "The Last Stand of Daniel Walker" would have had plenty shooting and other kinds of zombie action, though. It would have been set on the Walker family farm, which is next to that of the Redfield's some miles southeast of Raccoon City proper. Players would have gotten to re-enact Elza's father trying to save his wife from being taken and killed by the zombies, and trying to hold out long enough for the Army to get in there and rescue her. Sort of a Resident Evil take on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan's Kobayashi Maru scenario. You die every time, of course ... but the goal would have been to see how long you could last and how many zombies and monsters you could take out with what resources you had on hand. I also had plans at one point for an "Exodus Extreme Battle" sort of thing, only with a definite Operation Raccoon City twist to it. You could have picked to either be fighting for Echo Team Command in trying to save Elza's group of survivors and the evidence against Umbrella they brought out with them, or fight on the side of the Umbrella Security Service to destroy both that evidence and anyone in your way. All that went by the wayside, of course, once Capcom said "no" to doing Exodus as a videogame -- but at least the ideas are out there now, if any fans want to take them on.

I could go on and on, but I'll mention just one more thing on the subject of any Exodus videogame. I would insist on a so-called "Classic Mode." You'd earn it after having played Exodus all the way through at least once and winning -- regardless of whatever ranking you get or how many times your character dies and you have to restart again from a saved game. What's Classic Mode? Well, once earned, it would allow you to play Exodus as close as possible to what the original Resident Evil 1.5 was going to be like. That means Elza and proto-Leon as the player characters -- or should we call him Grant Bitman? (laugh). That also means you get Marvin Branagh instead of Rita Burnside as an NPC, "John" instead of John Kendo, the RE1.5 style proto-Ada instead of Linda Merton, and so on. The game maps would be reconfigured to match the original game as close as possible, although it would still be running on the modern Exodus 3D graphics engine and using modern 3D models and such. Also, no monsters that weren't part of the original game - INCLUDING TYRANTS. Kamiya said that himself back in a 1998 joint interview with Noboro Sugimura about Resident Evil 2 and its development. So out go the Tyrants, the Regent Licker, the Crimson Dobermans, and the hunters of Exodus -- and in come the infected baboons, more infected gorillas, and the original version of G-Birkin as the king or boss monster which you have to defeat in order to win the game. Certain fans would insist on a Classic Mode option with any videogame version of Exodus. (smile) I happen to be one of them, too.

Q: It looks as if Capcom is about to take the Resident Evil franchise in an entirely different direction with Resident Evil 7, and perhaps even leave behind the classic tales and characters as we've come to know and love them. What do you think about that?

A: I don't think they'll ever completely abandon all that they've done in the past with the franchise, so long as it continues to make lots of money for them. There's also that big established fanbase out there to consider, too. However, this isn't the first time that Capcom's shaken up things -- and I think it's about time that they did. They've obviously realized that, too, which is why they're doing what they're doing with Resident Evil 7. They've got to change in order to keep things new and fresh, and not keep serving up the same old "same old," if you know what I mean. After all, there's actually been only one Resident Evil game since RE4 which I'd consider to be completely new, fresh, and original once you take all factors into the equation, and that was the first Revelations game. That wasn't the same old "action horror" shoot-every-thing-in-sight formula they've been serving. It had everything you'd want in a new Resident Evil experience while keeping everything that makes them such fun to play. Revelations 2? That was nothing more than a warmed-over mismash of the worst bits of CODE: Veronica and Dead Aim, with some extra bits from Gun Survivor thrown in there for good measure. The only thing original about it was the Burton family angle, and that was so Moria Burton could serve as this iteration's short-haired fanservice girl. And don't get me started on those other "action horror" romps they've been handing out ever since RE4, either. They've simply got to shake things up if they're going to keep the franchise alive. It's as simple as that.

What made RE4 so different when it first came out, and still makes it stand out, was the fact that it was original and unique. It was supposed to be a clean break from what Capcom had been doing before, aside from the reuse of Leon, and it was original at the time in so many ways. I also seem to recall that certain quarters of Resident Evil fandom were up in arms as much over how RE4 was going to ruin the franchise as they are now about RE7. Even today, RE4 remains one of the most original offerings in the entire franchise -- but it had to grow on me, like it did everyone else at the time who thought, "Leon in Spain? And fighting Aliens-ripoff worm thingeys?" It worked, though, and I'll now admit it. That's why I think RE7 is going to work, too. It's going to be new, with a new style of gameplay, an all new story -- in short, it's going to be completely original, with as few ties to the franchise past as possible. And that's a good thing, too.

Q: In closing, what do you have to say to Resident Evil fans about Elza Walker, and what you've done with her? Do you think they'll buy it?

A: I think everyone who's a Resident Evil fan and loves a good survival horror adventure of the classic "old school" variety will enjoy it. I think those fans who have been longing for a way to bring Elza Walker back into the franchise, not to mention having her character grow and develop up to the rest of where the other main franchise characters are now, will love it. And I think everyone who just plain loves a ripping good story, whether they be Resident Evil fans or not, are going to enjoy the ride.

Of course, there are a few who never will. Those are the types who are dead set in what they expect, the same who always want Elza to be running around the old RPD in her racing firesuit in an alternate reality, always remaining a cardboard character with no backstory or personality and never growing with the franchise. Some of these types are rather loud and outspoken, and they're going to make sure everybody within earshot knows how badly they think about Exodus. As for the rest of fandom? I think they'll not only accept it, but embrace it with open arms.

You see, back when I wrote Exodus, there was a rather obvious hole in the lineup of characters, both main and secondary, who populated the current form of the Resident Evil franchise. You want to know what that hole was? (pause) The good scientist -- the one who's on our side, the one who's working with the BSAA, and the DSO, and our heroes both big and small, to help stop the spread of global bioterrorisim. There have to be some characters of that type, and their existence is even implied - after all, for whom was Sherry collecting all that data on Jake in RE6? - but we've never actually saw such a character, much less have them be part of a major Resident Evil story, until Vendetta. All Capcom ever given us up to then were evil scientists - RE Zero's Dr. Marcus, RE2's Dr. Birkin, Outbreak's Greg Mueller, RE6's Carla Rademes, Dead Aim's Morpheus Duvall - the list goes on and on. I thought it was about high time the good guys got a scientist of their own. And why not have it be a character whom the fans already know and love? Capcom itself realized this a little bit later than I did, when they cast Rebecca Chambers in that role in the Vendetta CGI feature film -- but I did it first with Elza Walker in Exodus, and her transformation into Dr. Elizabeth Walker by the novel's end, long before Vendetta ever hit the screens.

So what if Dr. Walker is in a wheelchair? That's part of her character, and it's not like that's going to limit her. Does it limit Professor Xavier? (X-Men) Does it limit Barbara Gordon? (Batman) Did it limit Professor Dortmun, the crippled scientist who led the human resistance against the Daleks in the classic Doctor Who serial "The Dalek Invasion of Earth?" That guy fought the Daleks, the most evil creatures in the universe, from a wheelchair. (long pause) Let me say that again: that guy fought the freakin' DALEKS from a wheelchair. Just think about that one for a while. Being in a wheelchair is not going to limit Dr. Walker as much as you might think. Dr. Walker is available to fill the role of the senior good guy scientist, and I say she should. So say we all? (laugh) So say we all!

Q: Thank you, Mr. Mandel.

A: You're welcome.

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